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Last week, ������Ƶ’s Open Technology Institute joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Access Now, and legal scholar Jennifer Granick to file an in the case of . The case questions whether a company that holds data on behalf of a user has the right to inform those users when their data have been accessed by the government. For many years, the answer has been “no,” and law enforcement warrants served on a company like that regularly come with gag orders stapled alongside. OTI agrees with Microsoft that the Fourth Amendment clearly demands that cloud customers be informed when their information is handed over to police. OTI is proud to join with these organizations to demonstrate for the court the importance of notice in the 21st century.

The following quote can be attributed to Ross Schulman, Senior Counsel at ������Ƶ’s Open Technology Institute:

“A fundamental piece of Fourth Amendment law since the inception of the Constitution has been that if the police searched your home or belongings, you knew about it. In most cases, it would have been impossible not to, as a search almost always began with a knock on a door. Today our most intimate information doesn’t reside behind doors, it is kept on servers in data centers far from our homes. Today, the government can get away with gaining access to evidence without notice. The law prohibiting notice to the owner of a piece of data is unconstitutional and bad for public policy.”

“Microsoft’s case also raises an important question: preventing a company from telling a customer about government data access in ALL circumstances is a violation of the First Amendment’s freedom of speech. The guarantee of freedom of expression has exceptions to it, it is true, but a blanket prohibition on speech of a particular kind is anathema to the Constitution and our system of carefully protected rights.”