Microsoft Corp is being supported by numerous entities including academics, news organizations and corporate lobbyists in its legal battle against an Irish search warrant granted by the United States government to search for customer data stored in one of its servers situated in Ireland.
Brad Smith, the company's general counsel, said that the U.S. Department of Justice should cancel its request for the digital documents. The counsel mentioned that if the order pushes through, other foreign governments will also start demanding searches for digital data saved on U.S. servers.
According to Smith and Microsoft's allies, the search warrant will expose U.S. records to foreign authorities and will generate distrust for American tech firms from around the globe.
"Everybody wants to have their rights protected by their own law," said the Redmond company's counsel at a New York event by Microsoft on Monday.
Microsoft started its legal battle against the warrant in 2013. The tech giant said that the American prosecutors were overstepping as they wanted to take the data in an overseas country without the aid of local officials.
United States District Judge Loretta Preska ruled that Microsoft comply to the prosecutors' request and issued a search warrant.
The emails to be searched were not disclosed, but the data was being demanded for a drug investigation, according to the prosecutors. Additionally, the prosecutors noted that they are not violating the sovereignty of Ireland as U.S. employees from Microsoft has control of the overseas emails and can fetch them without stepping out of the country.
Carrier AT&T and Apple Inc. are among the many supporters of Microsoft in its legal battle. Other supports include the American Civil Liberties Union and 35 professors from fields of engineering and computer science. The supporters filed briefs against the search warrant.
Another ruling for the case by the court of appeals will potentially take more months to come.