A virtual who’s who of technology companies have stepped forward today, backing Microsoft in their challenge to US government orders to hand over private emails stored on servers outside of the United States.

Microsoft has been resisting the effort for quite some time in court, rejecting the idea that the US can unilaterally impose search warrants on companies overseas as a potentially dangerous precedent.

Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith has vowed the company will continue to resist the orders to hand over the data on servers in Ireland, saying the challenge was “inevitable” because the US is eroding privacy in the current war.

Smith noted that the US would be outraged if a foreign country used the same policy to seize data on US-located servers, and cautioned that the US couldn’t expect that other governments wouldn’t follow their example.

Even though the case is now over a year old, it remains unclear whose emails the Obama Administration is seeking from the Ireland-based server.