Microsoft Can Pursue Suit Over U.S. Sneak-and-Peek Searches

By Kartikay Mehrotra, Bloomberg News

Microsoft Corp. persuaded a judge not to let the U.S. government out of a lawsuit alleging that clandestine interception of users’ e-mails on company servers violates its free-speech rights.

The judge said the company has at least made a plausible argument that federal law muzzles its right to speak about government investigations, while not ruling on the merits of the case.

“The public debate has intensified as people increasingly store their information in the cloud and on devices with significant storage capacity,” U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle said in Thursday’s ruling. “Government surveillance ...