金融时报:愤怒的微软

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2021年10月04日

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愤怒的微软

继苹果之后，微软也因用户隐私安全的问题跟美国政府杠上了，而这次还正式起诉了美国政府。微软表示，政府部门禁止科技公司向用户透露他们的数据何时被联邦机构审查的做法违背了美国宪法。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

sue控告；请求[s(j)uː]

DoJ司法部（Department of Justice）

attorney-general司法部长；总检察长

gag塞住…的口；钳制…的言论[gæg]

invasive侵略性的[ɪn'veɪsɪv]

compel强迫，迫使[kəm'pel]

antiquated过时的；陈旧的['æntɪkweɪtɪd]

Microsoft sues DoJ over ‘secrecy orders'（489words）

By Leslie Hook in San Francisco

Microsoft is suing the Department of Justice over its requests to access customer data stored in the cloud, expanding the fight between US technology companies and Washington over privacy concerns.

Microsoft's lawsuit takes aim at the DoJ's practice of issuing “secrecy orders” that ban Microsoft from telling customers when their information is being accessed by the government. It names Loretta Lynch, the US attorney-general, as a defendant.

Microsoft says this practice, which is legal under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, violates its customers' Fourth Amendment right to know when they are being searched and violates Microsoft's First Amendment right to speak about these investigations.

“People do not give up their rights when they move their private information from physical storage to the cloud,” the lawsuit states. The DoJ said it was reviewing the filing.

Another large tech company confirmed that it, like Microsoft, had also seen an increase in secret searches. Microsoft's case is expected to get broad support from Silicon Valley.

The lawsuit comes at a time of growing public debate over how the US government should be able to access electronic records. Apple fought the FBI's demand for special software to access the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino terrorists, until the FBI found another way to unlock the device.

Microsoft said the practice of issuing search warrants with secrecy orders had become more common as more customers move to cloud computing. “The government … has exploited the transition to cloud computing as a means of expanding its power to conduct secret investigations,” the filing said.

Over the past 18 months, courts have issued more than 5,000 demands for customer information to Microsoft, around half of which contain secrecy orders. Of those, two-thirds have no fixed end-date, meaning that a user might never find out their information had been searched.

The suit follows Apple's high-profile case against the FBI in February. Although that case was later dropped, the DoJ has continued to try to compel Apple to co-operate in providing access to information on new iPhones.

Speaking about the Apple case in February, Microsoft founder Bill Gates told the Financial Times that he hoped that case would spark a deeper public debate over the circumstances under which governments should, and should not, have access to citizens' information.

“I hope that we have that debate so that the safeguards are built and so people do not opt — and this will be country by country — [to say] it is better that the government does not have access to any information,” he said.

The Microsoft lawsuit also takes aim at the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which has been criticised by many tech companies. The suit calls the statue “antiquated” and argues that the part of the law that allows secrecy orders is unconstitutional.

Microsoft has undertaken similar cases before, previously bringing three privacy-related cases against the US government over issues like disclosing the number of legal requests it received.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1.What right will be violated for Microsoft if the government hid investigations according to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act?

A.the First Amendment right

B.the Fourth Amendment right

C.the Fifth Amendment right

D.the Third Amendment right

答案(1)

2.What is the result of the fight between Apple and FBI about terrorist's iphone?

A.Apple unlocked the device just this once

B.the device was broken

C.the FBI found another way to unlock the device

D.Apple provided access to information on new iPhones