Microsoft sues for right to tell customers when US government requests emails
-
-
Microsoft has sued the US government for the right to tell its customers when a federal agency is looking at their emails, the latest in a series of clashes over privacy between the technology industry and Washington.
The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in federal court in the western district of Washington, argues that the government is violating the US constitution by preventing Microsoft from notifying thousands of customers about government requests for their emails and other documents.
-
Go Microsoft!
About time someone did this!
-
I'm glad they've done this, but does anyone really think the government would stop? This is just Microsoft trying to save some money by not having to comply.
-
Save money by not having to comply? That's not how I read this.
I read it completely differently.
Right now the government uses it's secret courts to create court orders that demand that MS hand over things, all the while the user has no idea.
This suit appears to be a demand on the part of MS to be allowed to tell whomever the account belongs to that the government has requested/required this information.
Right now if you're being investigated, you might have no clue. And while I understand how this is good for case building as it doesn't give a heads up to the bad guys so they have more time to hide, but it's been shown time and time again how the government gets it wrong and good people end up in bad places because of mistakes by the government. So the sooner you are made adware of things like this, and you've done nothing wrong, the sooner you can start solving any problems that brought you to their attention in the first place.
