Verizon files amicus brief in support of Microsoft

Verizon has filed an amicus brief [PDF] in support of Microsoft’s challenge in U.S. federal district court to a U.S. government warrant seeking digital information stored overseas.  The following statement should be attributed to Randal S. Milch, Executive Vice President, Public Policy, and General Counsel:

“The magistrate’s decision in this case allowed the United States government to use a warrant to compel Microsoft to produce a customer’s e-mail stored overseas. Verizon believes that decision was wrong: The law does not allow the U.S. government to use a search warrant to obtain customer data stored overseas. We think the decision was wrong when applied to an e-mail service provider; it would be even more wrong to apply the same logic to customers’ data stored in cloud data centers outside the United States. We noted in our 2013 Transparency Report that we had not received any demands for customers’ data stored in data centers outside the United States, and we do not expect to receive these types of demands. So we are filing this brief to try to avoid any unnecessary confusion or concern on behalf of customers outside the U.S. who store their data in cloud data centers outside the U.S."