The Justice Department says Microsoft's Supreme Court case is now moot

(Image credit: Gerard Julien/Getty Images)

published 1 April 2018

The Department of Justice said in a court filing published Saturday it no longer wishes to pursue its digital privacy case against Microsoft at the Supreme Court.

At issue is whether the U.S. government can compel American companies to produce digital data stored abroad. Part of the omnibus spending bill passed in March was the Cloud Act, which says a "provider of electronic communication service" like Microsoft must comply with court orders for data "regardless of whether such communication, record, or other information is located within or outside of the United States." The DOJ believes the law makes the case moot.

Microsoft supported the legislation, which provides procedure for U.S. law enforcement to work with foreign officials to obtain data. Previously, the company warned that if "the U.S. government obtains the power to search and seize foreign citizens' private communications physically stored in other countries" without legal permission, "it will invite other governments to do the same thing" to Americans.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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