When Mark Zuckerberg controversially revealed his thoughts on what he called ‘the end of privacy’ in 2010, his comments didn’t sit well with a large proportion of the global media that landed in the entrails of his remark. Following Zuckerberg’s arguably brazen assumption, Edward Snowden’s NSA revelations cast another shadow over the U.S. government, as well as the tech companies whose security had been compromised in order to collect what the public might have mistakenly believed was private information. As we enter a future of cloud-based computing, tech-companies will have the task of clipping the far-reaching web of spying agencies in order to beset some calm amongst those who put their trust in them. Microsoft’s general counsel, Brad Smith, is doing just that.

Today in New York City’s Times Square, a panel event is being hosted by Microsoft inviting members of the press, tech industry leaders, and civil liberties advocates, to discuss the question of the privacy of digital information and the encroaching government industry of spying. Smith was quoted as saying that the event would, “really show the breadth of support of our point of view.”

This comes after a landmark drug-trafficking case in which a New York judge signed a warrant that would enable the U.S. government to access information from emails that were stored on servers in a data center located in Dublin, Ireland. When Microsoft’s Global Criminal Compliance team found out that the requested information wasn’t stored on servers in the U.S., Microsoft rejected passing over the information on the grounds of rightfully protecting users’ privacy and took the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals – after it was first rejected by two lower courts. The Redmond company’s fight for civil liberties has so far garnered much attention and has been backed by its biggest rival Apple Inc., and also by telecommunications companies Verizon and AT&T.

The U.S. government at the same time has aired its grievances against the appeal stating that such a block disabling access to information would lead criminals to follow suit and store their data on overseas servers. The government must make an appeal sometime before March 2015.

In documents Microsoft presented to the Appeals court it was stated, “The power to embark on unilateral law enforcement incursions into a foreign sovereign country – directly or indirectly – has profound foreign policy consequences. Worse still, it threatens the privacy of U.S. citizens.”

Smith has stated that if Microsoft should lose the case, this will set a precedent for invasive tactics by government agencies and further diminish the public’s trust in how private their private information is. Smith, who has been fighting for civil rights for Microsoft and has been with the company for more than a decade said in the Guardian that such issues are inevitable following, “wars and changes in technology.” He also stated that even though privacy has been compromised, it’s also likely that at some point the public will get it back. In the event that doesn’t happen soon, and laws are not made to protect people’s civil liberties apropos digital information, Smith says tech companies will be forced to create better ways to keep the government out by encrypting data.

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