Case 2:16-mj-01061-TJR Document 13 Filed 02/03/17 Page 9 of 29
Circuit's decision in Microsoft, Google routinely complied with federal courts' search warrants
which commanded the production of user data stored on Google servers located outside the
United States. (N.T. 1/12/17 at 8.)
E.
The Microsoft Decision
The Microsoft decision was the result of an appeal from an order of the United
States District Court for the Southern District of New York which denied Microsoft
Corporation's motion to quash a search warrant. In that case, United States Magistrate Judge
James C. Francis, IV, issued a search warrant pursuant to the SCA authorizing the search and
seizure of information associated with a specific web-based email account maintained by
Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft moved to quash the search warrant to the extent it required
Microsoft to access user data stored and maintained on servers located in Ireland and import that
data into the United States for delivery to federal authorities.
In a comprehensive opinion, Judge Francis denied the motion to quash and held
that the warrant did not violate the presumption against extraterritorial application of a law of the
United States. In re Warrant to Search a Certain E-mail Account Controlled and Maintained by
Microsoft Corp., 15 F.Supp. 3d 466 (S.D.N.Y. 2014). Judge Francis found that under section
2703 of the SCA, the term "a warrant issued using the procedures described in the Federal Rules
of Criminal Procedure ... by a court of competent jurisdiction" is ambiguous regarding
jurisdiction. Judge Francis explained as follows:
This language is ambiguous in at least one critical respect. The words "using the
procedures described in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure" could be
construed to mean, as Microsoft argues, that all aspects of Rule 41 are
incorporated by reference in Section 2703(a), including limitations on the
territorial reach of a warrant issued under that rule. But, equally plausibly, the
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