Dina Bass

Apple, Google and Amazon were among the tech leaders that rallied behind Microsoft in its battle to stop the US government from conducting so-called sneak-and-peek searches of customer e-mails. Microsoft and its supporters argue the very future of mobile and cloud computing is at stake if customers can’t trust that their data will remain private.

A group of 11 technology firms including Google said in its court filing that the federal law allowing the searches goes “far beyond any necessary limits” while infringing users’ fundamental rights. “The government’s ability to engage in surreptitious searches of homes and tangible things is practically and legally limited," the companies said in the filing. “But the act allows the government to search personal data stored in the cloud without ever notifying an account owner that her data has been searched."