It's not exactly a shock, but Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates stated in an interview this week he supports his former company's recent lawsuit against the U.S. government over data requests.
Microsoft filed the lawsuit last week, claiming that the government has violated the First and Fourth Amendments by ordering Microsoft to keep thousands of data requests to the company secret.
Gates made his remarks about supporting the lawsuit in a chat with Reuters:
"There probably are some cases where (the government) should be able to go in covertly and get information about a company's email," Gates said at a Reuters Newsmaker event in Washington. "But the position Microsoft is taking in this suit is that it should be extraordinary and it shouldn't be a matter of course that there is a gag order automatically put in," he said in an interview with Reuters Editor-in-Chief Stephen Adler.
The U.S Justice Department has not yet commented on the lawsuit.
