The suit positions Microsoft as a champion of its customers’ privacy and draws attention to a legal process many may not be aware of. 
 
 “Most people do think of their email as their personal property, wherever it happens to reside,” said A. Michael Froomkin, a law professor at the University of Miami. “But there is a disconnect between behavior and expectations and the statute. And Microsoft is inviting a court to bring the law in line with people’s expectations.” 
 
 Beyond image-burnishing, the suit is a pragmatic attempt to move away from litigating cases one by one, which is costly and time-consuming. 
 
 “Microsoft is going on offense, but they’re kind of forced into it,” Mr. Froomkin said. 
 
 Judges grant the secrecy orders. Microsoft sees only the warrant for the information demanded and not the argument made by the prosecutors to justify a gag order. But the Microsoft legal team looked at the high percentage of secrecy orders granted in the year and a half through March of this year, and concluded that prosecutors often relied on a vague standard that there was a “reason to believe” that disclosure might hinder an investigation. 
 
 Microsoft, Mr. Smith said, “readily recognizes that nondisclosure orders are appropriate and necessary” when there is a risk of endangering a person’s life or that crucial evidence may be destroyed, for example. “What concerns us is the low standard the government has to bear and the absence of a time limit,” Mr. Smith added. 
 
 About two-thirds of the secrecy orders Microsoft received in the span it audited had no time limits. In the physical world, so-called sneak-and-peek warrants for secret searches are granted to look at documents without notifying a target. But most secrecy orders delay notification for a fixed period of time, typically 30 to 90 days, and detailed evidence is required for any extensions. 
 
 Microsoft, Mr. Smith said, has talked to other major tech companies, and others may join with briefs in support of Microsoft. ||||| 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. ||||| 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. ||||| 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. ||||| SEATTLE—Microsoft Corp. sued the Justice Department on Thursday, saying it’s unconstitutional for the government to bar tech companies from telling customers when federal agents have examined their data. 
 
 The suit, filed in the federal court here, 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. 
 
 Critics...
– 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."