A federal spending bill released late on Wednesday included bipartisan legislation that would amend a decades-old privacy law to clarify that a U.S. warrant seeking data stored overseas is valid in certain circumstances.
The provision, known as the Cloud Act, seeks to resolve a long-running dispute between Microsoft Corp. and other email providers and the U.S. Justice Department over whether a warrant can compel companies to hand over emails stored on foreign servers.
If adopted, the measure could make a case argued before the U.S. Supreme Court last month moot. The case arose after Microsoft balked at handing over a criminal suspect's emails stored in company servers in Ireland.