Microsoft Corp. v. United States

Microsoft Corp. v. United States
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 27, 2018 Decided April 17, 2018
Full case name	United States v. Microsoft Corp.
Docket no.	17-2
Citations	584 U.S. ___ (more) 138 S.Ct. 1186
Case history
Prior	Microsoft Corp. v. United States, S.D.N.Y. reversed, warrant quashed, and civil contempt ruling vacated (2nd Cir. 2016); cert. granted (S. Ct. 2018)
Holding
Second Circuit vacated and remanded after the controversy was mooted by passage of the CLOUD Act (March 2018).
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Anthony Kennedy · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer Samuel Alito · Sonia Sotomayor Elena Kagan · Neil Gorsuch
Case opinion
Per curiam
Laws applied
Stored Communications Act of 1986 CLOUD Act of 2018

Microsoft Corp. v. United States, known on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court as United States v. Microsoft Corp., 584 U.S. ___, 138 S. Ct. 1186 (2018), was a data privacy case involving the extraterritoriality of law enforcement seeking electronic data under the 1986 Stored Communications Act (SCA), Title II of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA), in light of modern computing and Internet technologies such as data centers and cloud storage.

In 2013, Microsoft challenged a warrant by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to turn over emails of a target account stored in Ireland, arguing that a warrant issued under Section 2703 of the Stored Communications Act could not compel American companies to produce data stored in servers outside the United States. Microsoft initially lost in the Southern District of New York, with the judge stating that the nature of the Stored Communication Act warrant, as passed in 1986, was not subject to territorial restrictions. Microsoft appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, who found in favor of Microsoft by 2016 and invalidated the warrant. In response, the United States Department of Justice appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, which decided to hear the appeal.

While the case was pending in the Supreme Court, Congress passed the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act (CLOUD Act), which amended the SCA to resolve concerns from the government and Microsoft related to the initial warrant. The Supreme Court, following agreement from both the government and Microsoft, determined the passage of the CLOUD Act and a new warrant for the data filed under it made the case moot and vacated the Second Circuit's decision.