Microsoft Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc. have faced new setbacks in their battles against the collection of customer information by U.S. authorities, leaving the U.S. government with the upper hand, according to court documents and news reports published Friday.
In the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, U.S. Magistrate Judge James Francis IV rejected Microsoft’s argument that the government can obtain only customer emails Microsoft stores in the United States, not abroad. And in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Judge Rosemary Collyer declassified a March 20 order [PDF] that denied an unidentified telephone company’s challenge against the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of customer data from telecommunications businesses. The Washington Post reported the company is Verizon.
