Enlarge / Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, speaks at the Microsoft Annual Shareholders Meeting in Bellevue, Washington, on November 30, 2016. (credit: Jason Redmond, Getty Images)
An evenly split federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that it won’t revisit its July decision that allowed Microsoft to squash a US court warrant for e-mail stored on its servers in Dublin, Ireland. The 4-4 vote by the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals sets the stage for a potential Supreme Court showdown over the US government’s demands that it be able to reach into the world’s servers with the assistance of the tech sector.
A three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit had ruled that federal law, notably the Stored Communications Act, allows US authorities to seize content on US-based servers, but not on overseas servers. Because of how the federal appellate process works, the Justice Department asked the New York-based appeals court to revisit the case with a larger, en banc, panel—but the outcome fell one judge short.
Peter Carr, a Justice Department spokesman, said the agency was reviewing the decision and “considering our options.” Those options include appealing to the Supreme Court or abiding by the ruling.
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Source: Ars Technica – Court ruling stands: US has no right to seize data from world’s servers