On July 14, the Second Circuit in Microsoft v. United States ruled that the Stored Communications Act (SCA) “does not authorize a U.S. court to issue and enforce an SCA warrant against a United States-based service provider for the contents of a customer’s electronic communications stored on servers located outside the United States.”

The Justice Department sought and obtained a warrant under the SCA against Microsoft, seeking the contents of an email account on the grounds that the account was being used in furtherance of narcotics trafficking. Microsoft complied with the warrant by producing non-content information, but moved to quash the warrant as to the content because the content was stored on servers located in Ireland.  The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York denied the motion to quash, and ultimately held Microsoft in contempt for its failure to comply with the warrant.
Continue Reading The Stored Communications Act’s Warrant Provisions Do Not Apply Extraterritorially