Ireland Lends Support to Microsoft in Email Privacy Case

The Irish government has given qualified support to Microsoft’s efforts to block the American authorities from seizing a customer’s emails that are stored in Ireland.

The move is linked to a continuing legal dispute over a United States search warrant for emails related to a drug trafficking investigation. Those messages are stored in a Microsoft data center in Dublin. The Irish government said that courts in the United States should respect the sovereignty of other countries when issuing search warrants, though it added that Ireland and the United States had existing treaties that could allow the data to be shared with the American authorities.

[Dec 24]