SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) has sued the U.S. government for the right to tell its customers when a federal agency is looking at their emails, the latest in a series of clashes over privacy between the technology industry and Washington. 
 
 Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella delivers the keynote address during the Microsoft Build 2016 Developer Conference in San Francisco, California in this March 30, 2016, file photo. REUTERS/Beck Diefenbach/Files 
 
 The lawsuit, filed on Thursday in federal court in Seattle, argues that the government is violating the U.S. Constitution by preventing Microsoft from notifying thousands of customers about government requests for their emails and other documents. 
 
 The government’s actions contravene the Fourth Amendment, which establishes the right for people and businesses to know if the government searches or seizes their property, the suit argues, and Microsoft’s First Amendment right to free speech. 
 
 The Department of Justice is reviewing the filing, spokeswoman Emily Pierce said. 
 
 Microsoft’s suit focuses on the storage of data on remote servers, rather than locally on people’s computers, which Microsoft says has provided a new opening for the government to access electronic data. 
 
 Using the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), the government is increasingly directing investigations at the parties that store data in the so-called cloud, Microsoft says in the lawsuit. The 30-year-old law has long drawn scrutiny from technology companies and privacy advocates who say it was written before the rise of the commercial Internet and is therefore outdated. 
 
 “People do not give up their rights when they move their private information from physical storage to the cloud,” Microsoft says in the lawsuit. It adds that the government “has exploited the transition to cloud computing as a means of expanding its power to conduct secret investigations.” 
 
 Related Coverage Microsoft lawsuit against government relies on speech, privacy rights 
 
 SURVEILLANCE BATTLE 
 
 The lawsuit represents the newest front in the battle between technology companies and the U.S. government over how much private businesses should assist government surveillance. 
 
 By filing the suit, Microsoft is taking a more prominent role in that battle, dominated by Apple Inc (AAPL.O) in recent months due to the government’s efforts to get the company to write software to unlock an iPhone used by one of the shooters in a December massacre in San Bernardino, California. 
 
 Apple, backed by big technology companies including Microsoft, had complained that cooperating would turn businesses into arms of the state. 
 
 “Just as Apple was the company in the last case and we stood with Apple, we expect other tech companies to stand with us,” Microsoft’s Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith said in a phone interview after the suit was filed. 
 
 One security expert questioned Microsoft’s motivation and timing. Its lawsuit was “one hundred percent motivated by business interests” and timed to capitalize on new interest in customer privacy issues spurred in part by Apple’s dispute, said D.J. Rosenthal, a former White House cyber security official in the Obama administration. 
 
 As Microsoft’s Windows and other legacy software products are losing some traction in an increasingly mobile and Internet-centric computing environment, the company’s cloud-based business is taking on more importance. Chief Executive Satya Nadella’s describes Microsoft’s efforts as “mobile first, cloud first.” 
 
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 Its customers have been asking the company about government surveillance, Smith said, suggesting that the issue could hurt Microsoft’s ability to win or keep cloud customers. 
 
 In its complaint, Microsoft says over the past 18 months it has received 5,624 legal orders under the ECPA, of which 2,576 prevented Microsoft from disclosing that the government is seeking customer data through warrants, subpoenas and other requests. Most of the ECPA requests apply to individuals, not companies, and provide no fixed end date to the secrecy provision, Microsoft said. 
 
 Microsoft and other companies won the right two years ago to disclose the number of government demands for data they receive. This case goes farther, requesting that it be allowed to notify individual businesses and people that the government is seeking information about them. 
 
 Increasingly, U.S. companies are under pressure to prove they are helping protect consumer privacy. The campaign gained momentum in the wake of revelations by former government contractor Edward Snowden in 2013 that the government routinely conducted extensive phone and Internet surveillance to a much greater degree than believed. 
 
 Late last year, after Reuters reported that Microsoft had not alerted customers, including leaders of China’s Tibetan and Uigher minorities, that their email was compromised by hackers operating from China, Microsoft said publicly it would adopt a policy of telling email customers when it believed their email had been hacked by a government. 
 
 The company’s lawsuit on Thursday comes a day after a U.S. congressional panel voted unanimously to advance a package of reforms to the ECPA. 
 
 Last-minute changes to the legislation removed an obligation for the government to notify a targeted user whose communications are being sought. Instead, the bill would require disclosure of a warrant only to a service provider, which retains the right to voluntarily notify users, unless a court grants a gag order. 
 
 It is unclear if the bill will advance through the Senate and become law this year. 
 
 Separately, Microsoft is fighting a U.S. government warrant to turn over data held in a server in Ireland, which the government argues is lawful under another part of the ECPA. Microsoft argues the government needs to go through a procedure outlined in a legal-assistance treaty between the U.S. and Ireland. 
 
 Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) is fighting a separate battle in federal court in Northern California over public disclosure of government requests for information on users. 
 
 The case is Microsoft Corp v United States Department of Justice et al in the United States District Court, Western District of Washington, No. 2:16-cv-00537. ||||| Microsoft sued the Justice Department today, challenging the constitutionality of the gag orders issued by the government that prevent tech companies from informing their customers when their data is accessed as part of an investigation. 
 
 The suit challenges a provision in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) that allows courts to force Microsoft and other companies that offer cloud storage to stay silent when they turn over customer data to the government. Microsoft claims that these gag orders violate customers’ right to know when the government searches their property, and the company’s right to communicate freely with its customers. 
 
 Written 30 years ago, before cloud storage was as common as it is today, ECPA gives the government legal cover to access data stored in the cloud without notifying its owner. “The government,” Microsoft argues in its lawsuit, “has exploited the transition to cloud computing as a means of expanding its power to conduct secret investigations.” 
 
 Microsoft claims that, between September 2014 and March 2016, it has received 5,624 federal requests for customer data. Of those requests, 2,576 were accompanied by a gag order, prohibiting Microsoft from informing its customers that their information was being accessed by the government. 
 
 Although some of the secrecy orders came with a time limit, after which Microsoft could tell its customers about the intrusion, the majority did not — meaning that Microsoft could never divulge that the search had taken place. In its suit, Microsoft singles out its Outlook.com and and Office365 as products that are frequently targeted by the government. 
 
 “These twin developments—the increase in government demands for online data and the simultaneous increase in secrecy—have combined to undermine confidence in the privacy of the cloud and have impaired Microsoft’s right to be transparent with its customers, a right guaranteed by the First Amendment,” Microsoft states in its suit. 
 
 The lawsuit comes one day after the House Judiciary Committee voted unanimously on the Email Privacy Act, a bill that aims to reform ECPA. 
 
 Update: The ACLU praised Microsoft’s lawsuit and called on Congress to take up ECPA reform, specifically focusing on the gag order issues raised by Microsoft. “If Congress fails to include those changes as it considers ECPA reform, then the courts should step in, including in Microsoft’s case, to end the government’s constitutional failure to provide notice,” said ACLU staff attorney Alex Abdo. ||||| WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is intervening in a digital-age privacy dispute between the Trump administration and Microsoft over emails stored abroad. 
 
 The justices say Monday they will hear the administration's appeal of a lower court ruling in favor of Microsoft. The court held the emails sought in a drug trafficking investigation were beyond the reach of a search warrant because they were kept on a Microsoft server in Ireland. 
 
 The case is among several legal clashes that Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft and other technology companies have had with the government over questions of digital privacy and authorities' need for information to combat crime and extremism. 
 
 Privacy law experts say the companies have been more willing to push back against the government since the leak of classified information detailing America's surveillance programs. 
 
 The case also highlights the difficulty that judges face in trying to square decades-old laws with new technological developments. 
 
 In 2013, federal investigators obtained a warrant under a 1986 law for emails from an account they believe was being used in illegal drug transactions as well as identifying information about the user of the email account. 
 
 Microsoft turned over the information, but went to court to defend its decision not to hand over the emails from Ireland. 
 
 The federal appeals court in New York agreed with the company. The administration said in its Supreme Court appeal said the decision is damaging "hundreds if not thousands of investigations of crimes — ranging from terrorism, to child pornography, to fraud." 
 
 Wherever the emails reside, Microsoft can retrieve them "domestically with the click of a computer mouse," Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Wall told the court. 
 
 Microsoft had urged the court to stay out of the case and instead allow Congress to make needed changes to bring the 1986 Stored Communications Act up to date. Bipartisan bills have been introduced in both the Senate and House of Representatives. Microsoft said the high court's intervention would "short-circuit" the congressional effort. 
 
 "The current laws were written for the era of the floppy disk, not the world of the cloud. We believe that rather than arguing over an old law in court, it is time for Congress to act by passing new legislation," Microsoft president and chief legal officer Brad Smith wrote on the company's blog after the court acted. 
 
 Privacy scholars also have worried that the court may have trouble resolving difficult issues in a nuanced way. 
 
 Data companies have built servers around the world to keep up with customers' demands for speed and access. Among the issues the court may confront is whether the same rules apply to the emails of an American citizen and a foreigner. Another is whether it matters where the person is living. 
 
 The Stored Communications Act became law long before the advent of cloud computing. Judge Gerard Lynch, on the New York panel that sided with Microsoft, called for "congressional action to revise a badly outdated statute." 
 
 The case, U.S. v. Microsoft, 17-2, will be argued early next year. ||||| Microsoft Corp. will file an amicus brief next week to support Apple Inc. in its fight with the U.S. government over unlocking a terrorist’s iPhone, President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith said at a congressional hearing Thursday to discuss the need for new legislation to govern privacy. 
 
 Google parent Alphabet Inc. and Facebook Inc. plan to file a separate industry brief according to people familiar with the matter, and Twitter Inc. said it expects to join a friend of the court brief as well. 
 
 Apple is refusing to comply with a court order requiring it to create tools that will make it easier for FBI investigators to unlock the phone used by one of the attackers in the December massacre in San Bernardino, California. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has called the demand nothing less than a threat to civil liberties. 
 
 In its response to the court Thursday, Apple asked it to set aside a Feb. 16 order to help the FBI. Apple argued the Justice Department has overstepped its authority, contending it isn’t just about one iPhone, but about the government usurping its power to undermine privacy for millions of people worldwide. The case has the potential to be taken up by the Supreme Court. 
 
 “Every case has implications for others,” Smith said at the hearing. 
 
 Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey said at a different hearing that the government isn’t looking to send a message, but acknowledged that the case may set a precedent. 
 
 Microsoft has so far not commented on the case beyond participating in a statement last week from an industry group that said while it’s “extremely important” to deter crime and terrorism, no company should be required to build back doors to their own technology. 
 
 Microsoft itself is fighting the U.S. government over an order to turn over a suspected drug trafficker’s e-mails that are stored in one of the company’s data centers in Ireland. Apple has backed Microsoft in that case, which is waiting on the ruling of an appellate court in New York. 
 
 Earlier this week, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates told Bloomberg Television he was “disappointed” by reports that he supports the U.S. government in this dispute, saying it doesn’t accurately reflect his opinion. 
 
 “That doesn’t state my view on this,” he said in an interview on “Bloomberg Go.” “The extreme view that government always gets everything, nobody supports that. Having the government be blind, people don’t support that.” 
 
 The Financial Times reported that Gates sided with the U.S. government, saying that the court order requiring Apple to help unlock the phone was a one-time request and “no different” from accessing bank and telephone records. ||||| Sure, Microsoft's lawsuit aims to protect civil liberties, but the company says it also wants to ensure it can continue to sell products that its customers can trust. The company argues that the government has placed it under an unlimited gag order, forcing it to refrain from informing customers when the authorities request emails and other information. And that the gag order violates the free speech protections of the First Amendment. 
 
 Microsoft says it understands there are times when secrecy is needed so that a suspect doesn't destroy evidence or further jeopardize an investigation. However, some of the requests prohibit from ever telling a customer the government accessed their data. 
 
 "Based on the many secrecy orders we have received, we question whether these orders are grounded in specific facts that truly demand secrecy," explained president and chief legal officer Brad Smith. "To the contrary, it appears that the issuance of secrecy orders has become too routine." 
 
 The company is no stranger to battles with the US government over customer privacy and security. In 2014, for example, Microsoft resisted a demand to seize offshore email accounts stored at a data center in Ireland. Redmond is not alone in the fight for more transparency when it comes to government requests, either. Both Google and Twitter want to be able to disclose more information on the number of national security letters it receives. Twitter filed a lawsuit in 2014, asking a court to declare the government's restrictions on what it's able to disclose in transparency reports a violation of the First Amendment.
– Microsoft sued the Justice Department Thursday in a case that will test broad principles of privacy in the digital age. But the root of the complaint is far more specific: Microsoft says the feds have demanded access to customer data 5,624 times in the past 18 months— and 2,576 of those demands came with gag orders that prevented the company from letting people know the US was snooping, reports TechCrunch. The government says it can do so under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, but Microsoft argues that the law, written more than 30 years ago, is outdated and, worse, unconstitutional. The government “has exploited the transition to cloud computing as a means of expanding its power to conduct secret investigations," says Microsoft. What's more, 1,752 of the demands were open-ended, meaning the government can keep spying on someone for as long as it wants. Some coverage: The suit "raises a fundamental question of how easily, and secretly, the government should be able to gain access to individuals’ information in the cloud-computing era," observes the Wall Street Journal. The key point of the case is that it "focuses on the storage of data on remote servers, rather than locally on people's computers, which Microsoft says has provided a new opening for the government to access electronic data," reports Reuters. Engadget notes the business angle: "Sure, Microsoft's lawsuit aims to protect civil liberties, but the company says it also wants to ensure it can continue to sell products that its customers can trust." The New York Times points out the broad scope: The suit, "unlike Apple’s fight with the Federal Bureau of Investigation over access to a locked iPhone, is not attached to a single case. Instead, it is intended to challenge the legal process regarding secrecy orders."