Enlarge / Brad Smith, president and chief legal officer of Microsoft Corp., right, speaks to the media while his attorney, Joshua Rosenkranz, listens outside the US Supreme Court on Feb. 27, 2018. (credit: Aaron P. Bernstein/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
On Tuesday morning, the nine justices of the Supreme Court put a legal theory from Microsoft to the test—that the company should not be forced to hand over data held abroad to the American government, even when served with a valid court order.
During oral arguments, the Department of Justice, by contrast, urged the court to compel Microsoft to hand over the data. The DOJ said that allowing Microsoft to refuse the order is tantamount to encouraging companies to keep particularly sensitive data overseas as a way to evade authorities.
Two liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who have recently ruled on the side of privacy in the past, questioned whether the court should be stepping in. They said that the onus should be on Congress to regulate appropriately.
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