Microsoft founder Bill Gates is straddling the fence when it comes to the debate between privacy and national security advocates, the billionaire suggested on Monday evening.
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“There probably are some cases where [the government] should be able to go in covertly and get information about a company’s email,” Gates said at a Reuters event in Washington. “But the position Microsoft is taking in this suit is that it should be extraordinary and it shouldn’t be a matter of course that there is a gag order automatically put in.”
He was referring to a lawsuit Microsoft filed against the Justice Department on Thursday. The company is seeking the right to tell its customers when the federal government demands it hand over their personal information, and complained in its suit that the government is increasingly using the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to seek data held in cloud storage. Critics have said the 1984 law should not apply to contemporary technology.
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In the second half of 2015, the company reported receiving requests for information on approximately 16,000 users pursuant to National Security Letters or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Those actions simultaneously impose a gag order that prevents the recipient from telling customers that their information has been requested.
Gates said on Monday that he did not see the issue in black and white terms. “I don’t think there are any absolutists who think the government should be able to get everything or the government should be able to get nothing,” he said.
