Can the United States government enforce a warrant to compel an American Internet service provider (“provider” or “ISP”) to surrender a customer’s data that are stored in another country? Should it be able to do so? This Note focuses on a case that was before the Supreme Court that addressed this question.1 United States v. Microsoft, (“Microsoft”) would have interpreted the Stored Communications Act (“SCA” or “the Act”)2 pertaining to when and how the government may compel a provider of electronic communication service to disclose customer or subscriber content information.3 However, before the Court made a ruling, Congress passed the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act (“CLOUD Act”) as part of an omnibus bill, which gave a legislative solution to this issue.4 Before the CLOUD Act was passed, courts struggled to understand and apply the SCA in a technologically evolving world, where characterizing the “cloud” itself was cloudy.
Sabrina A. Morris