Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Cisco have filed an amicus brief in support of Google, after a Pennsylvania court ruled that the company had to hand over emails stored overseas in response to an FBI warrant.
An amicus brief is filed by people or companies who have an interest in the case, but aren’t directly involved. In this case, it’s in Silicon Valley’s interest to keep US law enforcement from accessing customer data stored outside the US, notes Business Insider.
In the brief, the companies argue: “When a warrant seeks email content from a foreign data center, that invasion of privacy occurs outside the United States — in the place where the customers’ private communications are stored, and where they are accessed, and copied for the benefit of law enforcement, without the customer’s consent.”
They claim that handing over foreign data “invites” other countries to demand emails from US citizens, stored on US soil, in the same way.
