They also involved important issues of principle, including the right of people to know what the government is doing in certain circumstances. Like Apple Inc. AAPL -0.06 % and Alphabet Inc., GOOGL 1.45 % which have challenged the government over similar issues, Microsoft has been hailed by privacy activists and civil libertarians worried about government overreach. MR. SMITH: These suits have all involved situations where we’ve felt that the company’s business and the interests of our customers were at stake around security and privacy. These are issues we had tried to raise with the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., over the last few years. It’s always important for us to acknowledge that some of these issues involve competing values that are each important in their own right.

Source: Wall Street Journal May 31, 2016 02:03 UTC