WIEDER AND GUARNIERI v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT [of the Basic Law] accounts for such novel risks and helps bring them into the general framework of the rule of law that is created by the Basic Law.” II. CASE-LAW FROM THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A. United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259 (1990) 39. The applicant was a Mexican citizen and resident who was believed to be a leader of a drug smuggling organisation. He was apprehended by Mexican police and transported to the United States of America, where he was arrested. Following his arrest, Drug Enforcement Administration agents searched his Mexican residences and seized certain documents. The question for the domestic courts was whether the Fourth Amendment1 applied to the search and seizure by United States’ agents of property that was owned by a non-resident alien and was located in a foreign country. 40. In a judgment delivered in 1990, the Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment did not apply, since its purpose was to protect the people of the United States against arbitrary action by their own Government, and not to restrain the Federal Government’s actions against aliens outside United States’ territory. It further held that if there had been a constitutional violation in this case, it occurred solely in Mexico, since a Fourth Amendment violation was fully accomplished at the time of an unreasonable governmental intrusion, whether or not the evidence seized was sought for use in a criminal trial. 41. In the later case of re Terrorist Bombings, 552 F.3d 157, 171 (2d Cir. 2008) the Court of Appeals extended the principle established in Verdugo-Urquidez and concluded that the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment did not apply to the surveillance of United States’ citizens abroad. B. United States of America v. Microsoft Corporation 42. In December 2013 federal law enforcement agents applied to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York for a warrant requiring Microsoft to disclose all e-mails and other information associated with an account of one of its customers. A Magistrate Judge issued the warrant directing Microsoft to disclose to the Government the contents of a specified e-mail account and all other records or information associated with the account “[t]o the extent that the information . . . is within [Microsoft’s] possession, custody, or control.” The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. 1 14