welcome to the program, brad smith.o point out we invited the department of justice to joind the intervw but they declined.ne let me begin by asking you what is the federal government doing that microsoft doesn't like? >> what gives us concern is the fact we've received almost 5,600 gag or secrecy orders over the last 18 months. over two-thirds of them have no end date at all. so it means that we are permanently prohibited from telling customers that the government has accessed, read and obtained copies of their e-mails. we feel that infringes on the constitutional rights of consumers and businesses to be secure from unreasonable government searches. it infringes on our first amendment right to speak, to share information with our customers. >> woodruff: we know the justice department has not responded to the lawsuit, have not said anything publicly, but in the past they've said these are investigations that involve criminals, people who are breaking the law, that are perhaps involved in potential terrorist acts. why no

brad smith explained in a blog post why the company is taking action now.e wrote that based on the many secrecy orders we have received, we question if they are grounded secrecy.that demand it appears the issue of secrecy orders has become too routine. joining us now is matt larson. and a civil liberties attorney with the electronic frontier organization. how is the legal foundation different than what happened with the fbi and apple? >> this is about requests for e-mail. for thousands and thousands of e-mail accounts or other data, as opposed to one phone in the apple case. it is a different law, different constitutional rights. microsoft says it has a first amendment right to tell its customers bought requests for their information. that is a basic right to know that the government is investigating you. and basic right that microsoft ties to tell you. ,mily: they talk about this law made into law in 1986 before the world wide web, decades before anything was stored on the cloud. governmentatt, the is still looking for physical files. how are electronic fi

brad smith explained in a blog post today whitey company is taking action now. he wrote, based on the many secrets -- secretive orders we have received, we question whether these orders are grounded in the civic facts. issues of secrecy orders has become too routine. joining us now for more bloomberg intelligence litigation, matt larson and andrew crocker. andrew, we will start with you. how is the legal foundation of this case different than what happened between the fbi and apple? andrew: and you've are having me. this is about request for e-mail. it is a request for thousands of e-mail accounts or other data as opposed to one phone in the apple case. it is also a different law at stake, a different constitutional rights. here, microsoft has a first amendment right to tell its customers about request they get for their e-mails. that is a basic right that you have to know that the government is investigating you, and a basic right that microsoft has to tell you. emily: what is interesting is, they talk about this law -- it was made into law in 1986, before the

. >> we will have the ceo of in i intoit brad smith coming up, and we will go on the stage to talk aboutechnology change, and it is interesting, because they just announced this morning that online revenue turbotax is up 15%, and it controls the direction of the revenue overall all year, and the stock is up in the early trading and close to all time highs, and so it is is going to be interesting to talk to him about the recovery of certain mistakes that he made, and remember last year turbotax and the small business and the blowup that almost happened. and here at collision, it is enterprise, consumer, and social is a part of it, and a few people doing the live stream here on facebook, and periscope as well. and so this conference from the same people who brought us web summit has gone broader as the int internet has gone more broader. >> and now, we will look forward to that, jon fortt in new orleans. >> the markets at this hour are losing steam. we saw consumer confidence and durable goods in march come in light, and the dow down a fraction by 1%, and the s&p 500 has managed to go into

government accesses their e-mails or records, wrote microsoft's president and chief legal officer brad smith in a blog post. he wrote, yet it's becoming routine for the u.s. government to issue orders to keep these kinds of demands secret. microsoft said it received 5,624 federal demands for customer data over the past 18 months and 2,576 of those came with gag orders, that blocked the company from telling the customers in question. the department of justice had no immediate reaction to the suit. a u.s. government source said the feds only learned of the legal action through media inquiries today. the filing coming in the wake of the dramatic standoff between apple and the fbi over encryption. for cnbc business news, i'm eamon javers in washington. >>> well, blackrock has posted a 20% drop in first quarter profits as it struggled with the sharp pullback in financial markets. the ceo and chairman larry fink told cnbc how performance fees contributed to the miss. >> one area that dragged earnings that we had in terms of our hedge funds, we had performance fee reductions. so that's the biggest.

this company has a bright future, one that was quite evident during our recent interview with ceo brad smithbout all the terrific changes occurring at this stellar firm. let's take questions. let's go to dave in illinois. dave. >> caller: dr. cramer from the city of broad shoulders and home to the john hancock willis and trump towers thank you for taking my call. >> of course. how can i help? >> caller: jim, banks of late are under revenues and earnings pressure and cost cutting and mixed first quarter earnings reports indicate, recent fed speak to defer normalization will delay increases in their net interest margin they so desperately need. >> indeed. >> caller: sin tech will continue to fuel disruption in the banking secretarier. number 33 on cnbc's disrupter list. jim, your thoughts on lending club. >> i don't like it. i don't like it because i think it is very hard to understand and i think they have more risks than people realize. i have not liked the stock for a while and that's been right and i'm not changing my view here. i do like dave your mosaic of what you had to say about it bu

joining us is the company's president and chief legal officer brad smith. t day as a gathering of executives and lawmakers on technology policy. brad, first up, why is the move necessary? what has the government been asking for? >> well, what we're here today with tech net is to talk about a broad range of technology issues. one of the important ones is people's privacy. the case that we brought recently is really all about a situation where the government is obtaining people's emails from data centers, from the cloud, with non-disclosure orders that mean that over half the time people will never know that the government has their email, whether they're an individual or a business. we think that goes too far and really infringes on people's constitutional rights. >> is this something that the government is doing on a regular basis beyond their need to try and investigate for security issues for the nation? >> well, when we pulled the data at microsoft, we found that just at our company we had received over 5200 of these warrants over the last 18 months. we f

brad bell, abc7 news. alison: conspiracy theorists. let's check on the roads. eric smith? >> hey. tough ride.ajor accidents recently. but there is a delay to woodbridge for the typical delay. more delays off and on to pick up in stafford county as well. i-66 westbound past the nutley street. there is nothing unusual about that. the capital beltway at the connector is slow for both directions. inner loop dealing with crash forward van doran street. top side is slow for the inner loop. slow on the inner loop. 270 spur. plenty slow at this time. this is heavy from rockville to gaithersburg. a tough ride as well. that is all for the traffic new the newschannel8 traffic center. back to you. leon: thank you. alison: well, it has been gorgeous. leon: things have to change. rain is not bad. we could use some. doug: rain is a good thing. april is a transition we expect these things. give you up to date. the smoke visible. they are making some progress. so far, 9300 acres burnt. the rain in the forecast tomorrow and thursday. 76 at the capitol. live across the potomac river. high clouds. a delightful a

smith test eric schmidt. he played a major role in steve apple in -- return to 1997. we sat down with brad stone. interviewed him many times. brad: he would have spent in disgust and said something profane about this entire discussion. he was a behind-the-scenes operator. he did not seek the limelight. emily: he never spoke to press apparently. brad: what can i say? gregarious. delightfully profane. insightful, not in the traditional silicon valley sense, he did not care that much about bits and bytes. he was insightful about organizations and people. that is why so many executives and investors use them as a resource about how to structure their companies, how to deal with interpersonal issues. emily: eric schmidt said today that he died this morning. he helped us build google and made our success possible. tim cook tweeting that will gamble believed in apple when fugate. we will miss his love for life. he gave a memorial service for steve jobs on apple's campus. he spoke about scott forstall. take a listen to what he had to say. bill campbell: scott forstall was demoing the new phone. he was de