The US Supreme Court on Tuesday held [opinion, PDF] that Microsoft is required to disclose a customer’s electronic information stored overseas when it was suspected in furthering illegal drug trafficking.

The per curium opinion vacated and remanded the judgment [opinion, PDF] of the US court of appeals, which held the disclosure to be unauthorized due to the information’s storage in Ireland. The court justified its opinion by citing the newly passed CLOUD Act [text] signed by President Donald Trump in March.

The original issue before the court was “whether, when the Government has obtained a warrant under 18 USC § 2703 [text], a US provider of e-mail services must disclose to the Government electronic communications within its control even if the provider stores the communications abroad.”

However, the recently passed CLOUD Act amended §2703 and essentially answered the question before the court by stating in relevant part:

A [service provider] shall comply with the obligations of this chapter to preserve, backup, or disclose the contents of a wire or electronic communication and any record or other information pertaining to a customer or subscriber within such provider’s possession, custody, or control, regardless of whether such communication, record, or other information is located within or outside of the United States.

The case originated in 2013 when federal law enforcement agents applied to the US district court for a § 2703 warrant requiring Microsoft to disclose all emails and other relevant information associated with the account of one of its customers thought to be used to further illegal drug trafficking. Upon determining that the government indeed had probable cause to believe this to be the case, the magistrate issued the requested warrant.

The warrant required Microsoft to disclose the contents of the specified email account and all other records associated with the account “to the extent that the information is within Microsoft’s possession, custody, or control.” However, Microsoft opposed the warrant when they determined that the account’s e-mail contents were stored in a sole location in Dublin, Ireland.

After a hearing in the district court required Microsoft to comply with the warrant despite the information’s location overseas, the court of appeals reversed. Then, following the passing of the CLOUD Act, the government obtained a new warrant under the new Act’s authority which unambiguously authorized the information disclosure.

As both parties agreed that the new warrant replaced the original issued under § 2703, the court deemed the case moot, and remanded to the court of appeals to oversee the information disclosure.