Uses, Microsoft sues the government: “Users need to know when it violates their privacy” – The Republic

NEW YORK – After the war (never completed) between Apple and FBI, opens the one between Microsoft and the US Department of Justice. Widens the front that opposes the giants digital economy Obama Administration, centered on a single theme: what balance struck between the right to privacy on the one hand, the imperatives of national security and the fight against terrorism (or crime ) on the other. Microsoft came to the village now suing the Department of Justice. The voluminous dossier submitted by the multinational company that was founded by Bill Gates , denounces the increasing frequency with which police and judicial authorities require to get their hands on “our” data: email, and more. Plus, the request-taxation at Microsoft to blind customers when their personal data have been violated to pass them to investigators.

The file submitted by Microsoft’s lawyers are full of numbers. Only in the last year and a half, the multinational which has its headquarters near Seattle would receive well 5,624 data access demands of its customers, as presented by federal authorities (usually the FBI acting as judicial police to the Justice department dependencies) . Of these almost half (2,576) were accompanied by a further order of the judge: not to tell the client that there was the “digital search.” In many cases (1,752) this diktat of secrecy is indefinite. The customer does not know now or ever that Microsoft has collaborated with investigators by giving access to his email or other information.

The argument of Microsoft’s lawyers, which targets precisely this last aspect , it leverages different from ordinary police investigation in the “physical” world: if the investigators to raid your house with a search warrant, at least you realize that the door was open and the drawers of your room are upside down. In the lawsuit against the Government launched today by Microsoft charges of unconstitutionality is targeting just that, a ban on informing the customer when his data were delivered to the police and judiciary.

According to Microsoft this order is given too often, lightly, regardless of whether it is really essential for investigations or national security. The company’s lawyers call into question the First and Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which are established principles such as the right and the duty to warn the citizens who suffer searches. For the Justice Department counter-argument will leverage the danger that the subjects investigated (eg presumed terrorists) to change their modes of communication in order to escape.

The came to the Microsoft confirms that He is compacting the front of the largest hi-tech companies. The most famous previous case was the request of the FBI turned to Apple, because it violates the smartphone used by terrorists authors of the massacre of San Bernardino (California) in December. That battle has been exhausted since the Department of Justice has found other ways to penetrate the smartphone, with the help of hackers. Bill Gates early distanced himself from Apple’s position, which opposed an outright refusal to FBI requests, now its Microsoft chose to close ranks with the other big industrial technology.

Topics:

microsoft

privacy

USA

government

because

federal

FBI

Starring:

bill gates