Brad Smith

July 24, 2014
Brad Smith tells WSJ why he opposes government demands for personal data

In a video interview with the Wall Street Journal’s Dennis Berman, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith spoke about why consumer data needs to be protected from government surveillance. “We feel that one of our business necessities is to ensure that the sense of customer trust is protected,” Smith said. “So it has put us in a position where we’re standing up. We’re trying to think these issues through, and then speak out about the need for rules.”

July 3, 2014
Brad Smith: Why the Third of July should be remembered when it comes to privacy

It is the day that John Adams penned a letter to his wife about the controversy over the British government going from house to house to look for customs violations without any probable cause. That controversy would lead to the passage of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution against unreasonable search and seizure, an issue being publicly debated now in the wake of revelations about government surveillance.

June 28, 2014
Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith: The privacy week that was

In a Saturday blog post, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith offered his perspective on a unanimous decision from the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Riley v. California. The court ruled in the case that warrantless searches under an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement cannot extend to cell phones, and that authorities must secure a warrant from a court to search such a device.

March 28, 2014
Microsoft takes additional steps to protect customer privacy

On March 20, news coverage focused on a case in 2012 in which Microsoft investigators accessed the Hotmail content of a user who was trafficking in stolen Microsoft source code. In a blog post Friday, Microsoft General Counsel and Executive Vice President of Legal and Corporate Affairs Brad Smith outlined an important change to the company’s privacy practices.