Does US Have Right To Data On Overseas Servers? We're About To Find Out (arstechnica.com) 265
Long-time Slashdot reader quotes Ars Technica:
The Justice Department on Friday petitioned the US Supreme Court to step into an international legal thicket, one that asks whether US search warrants extend to data stored on foreign servers. The US government says it has the legal right, with a valid court warrant, to reach into the world's servers with the assistance of the tech sector, no matter where the data is stored.
The request for Supreme Court intervention concerns a 4-year-old legal battle between Microsoft and the US government over data stored on Dublin, Ireland servers. The US government has a valid warrant for the e-mail as part of a drug investigation. Microsoft balked at the warrant, and convinced a federal appeals court that US law does not apply to foreign data.
According to the article, the U.S. government told the court that national security was at risk.
The request for Supreme Court intervention concerns a 4-year-old legal battle between Microsoft and the US government over data stored on Dublin, Ireland servers. The US government has a valid warrant for the e-mail as part of a drug investigation. Microsoft balked at the warrant, and convinced a federal appeals court that US law does not apply to foreign data.
According to the article, the U.S. government told the court that national security was at risk.
National Security! (Score:5, Insightful)
When isn't it national security?
I don't recall the details of the case and can't be bothered to read up on it, but according to the summary it's a drug investigation. It's a pretty far leap from there to national security.
Also, four years. If nothing's happened yet based on the information in those emails it's VERY unlikely anything is going to happen ever. That alone should rule out a national security issue.
Re:National Security! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's also a pretty big leap from "national security" to "we must trample the Constitution". Or at least, it used to be.
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Re:National Security! (Score:5, Insightful)
And here's the problem, the US can, as you point out, force a company that does business in the US to either hand over the data, or cease doing business in the US. But that's only the start of it. A precedent like that would trigger what is effectively a trade war, with other countries making laws that if you want to do business in their country you must not do business in the US, as well as the precedent that all data held in the US is also obtainable by any other country in the world, including places like China, Russia, and Iran. The US is a big market, but it's not as big as the rest of the world, and businesses worldwide would suffer from such a trade war, especially those based in the US.
The question here has never been whether the US can force Microsoft to hand over the data, that part is obvious, they can. The real question is whether the US should do so, or if the cost is really too high. I believe it is.
storing data in the US (Score:2)
Take a look at this propaganda piece against Scaleway [github.io] (that they're somehow inferior for obeying the speed of light).
At this point, I quite don't see a rational person hosting their data in the US or at a company with US presence. Because, you see, you got the 4th Amendment, we don't, right?
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For instance, if the data I am storing isnt my personal data but instead it is data on millions of my companies customers... pretty sure I care far more about uptime and preventing my competition from getting it than I am about the NSA/CIA/FBI/DNC snooping on it, and pretty sure they will snoop on it regardless of where it is.
You think our government doesnt already have the data? This is just a public show. The narrative: the Federal government attempts to grab yet more authorit
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Except in most of the world it is already illegal to store that data somewhere the US has jurisdiction over. So far that has meant "in the US" but the definition might soon be "with any company that does business in the US" and that would be a pretty big deal.
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U.S. companies OTOH will be at a competitive disadvantage due to this stupid policy. Because everyone will know that anything they own could potentially be raided by the U.S. government no matter where in the world it's stored. Consequently, U.S. companies
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I for one would like for the US Supreme Court to say the US government can do that. All the governments in the world would (that already don't do so) would enact laws saying that if those companies do that, they'll be punished, hard. All US Internet giants (Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and others) will find themselves forced to leave those countries, become US-only, and at most setting up partnerships with completely independent companies at every market and collecting royalties, but without s
Laws Already in Place (Score:2)
A precedent like that would trigger what is effectively a trade war, with other countries making laws that if you want to do business in their country you must not do business in the US
Nobody will pass laws like that they will just enforce the laws they already have. If Microsoft share the data stored in the EU with the US government I expect this will put them in violation of the EU data protection laws. The result will be fines and probably civil damage cases from those affected. This will severely damage large, global US companies making them far less competitive with local companies and also certainly lead to the US's current idiot in charge making wild accusations about the EU and o
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And here's the problem, the US can, as you point out, force a company that does business in the US to either hand over the data, or cease doing business in the US. But that's only the start of it. A precedent like that would trigger what is effectively a trade war, with other countries making laws [...]
In fact the "other countries" have already made laws, in this case the EU has privacy and data protection laws which mean MS cannot hand over the data without being in breach.
What is seemingly obviously required is international agreement so that the US can request the data from the relevant local jurisdiction who will be able to get it under the relevant local laws. Funnily enough, such an agreements (mutual legal assistance treaty) also already exist, and the EU laws which prevent MS handing it over also
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And the result is ....
http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/2... [cnn.com]
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It's also a pretty big leap from "national security" to "we must trample the Constitution". Or at least, it used to be.
When was that?
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White privilege detected
Hypocrite privilege detected.
*Every* race, religion, ethnicity, etc etc has, at some point in history, moved to some area and forced out and/or killed the people there at the time or committed other atrocities and/or crimes against humanity. African leaders in the 16th/17th centuries sold their own people into slavery.
There are no 'good guys' and everyone is 'privileged'.
Strat
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I did not reply to your post, I replied to the smarmy little SJW AC and his 'white privilege' BS he attacked *you* with. I have no argument with what you posted, I'm not sure why you felt the need to snark at me. I actually defended you, after all.
Strat
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It's also a pretty big leap from "national security" to "we must trample the Constitution". Or at least, it used to be.
"Risk to national security" is just another "think of the children" justification
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In this case it may even be international law and agreements that are at risk.
Re:National Security! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:National Security! (Score:5, Insightful)
If the SCotUS decides this in favor of the U.S. government, this isn't going to end the way they think it will. The U.S. companies aren't going to roll over and hand over the information the U.S. government wants. They're going to expatriate and reincorporate in another country which doesn't have such overreaching search and seizure laws.
The stupid IRS policy of taxing all income earned abroad simply because you're a U.S. citizen already causes wealthy Americans to move abroad (with their money) and give up their U.S. citizenship. A bad decision here will start the same exodus among U.S.-based multinational corporations. That's the national security issue here - the nation's economic security is being put at risk due to the U.S. government trying to make its laws and authority apply outside of the U.S.
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Of course it's national security. Someone somewhere smoked some weed and that could influence American children. How is this not national security, and why do you hate children so much you bad person!
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Besides, no way drugs are a "National Security" issue, unless the 3 letter agencies aren't getting their prescription meds again.
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If there are investigations in a drug case, and the state attorney is not able to approach the state attorneys of the countries in question, I would consider firing him and sending him back to law school.
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the US is in no way better than some dictator bombing his own citizens.
My fear is that in the future we may pray that we are only bombed by our own dictator.
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Not only millions of refugees.
The Iraq war caused about 1.3 million death during combat/bombings.
The follow up disaster of ISIS taking over can not really be counted so far, but likely twice as my dead or more. The people there who are capable of fleeing don't flee for nothing.
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"Perhaps we should take employ an old European tactic. After Rome invaded Carthage, they salted the land to prevent anything from growing there for a long time. "
Bullshit. That 'salting' was symbolic only, after all Roman soldiers were paid in salt, that's where the word 'salary' comes from. The sure as hell didn't put the money to pay hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the soil of a conquered nation.
That would be stupid.
"We should fly our military aircraft over Europe..."
You'd better spend the money to t
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after all Roman soldiers were paid in salt
That is a myth, they were payed in gold and silver.
that's where the word 'salary' comes from
That is true.
From your parent: After Rome invaded Carthage, they salted the land to prevent anything from growing there for a long time
As far as we know this is true, too.
From your parent: "We should fly our military aircraft over Europe..."
They are actually flying here. Since roughly 1942.
You'd better spend the money to train your battle ships not to hit container-ships as
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The way he sees it, if he was ever captured he would tell them everything he knows, why ? Because anything he knows is already out of date
He's a fucking idiot then. Read any military history and the single biggest factor in military operations is information. What is your enemy's order of battle, where are their strengths, do they have supplies.
This matters as a tactical level and at a theatre level and operations in one theatre impact them all.
Telling the enemy basic shit like who came for lunch yesterday reveals a ton of useful information that can confirm or dispel specific assumptions, introduce new insights and potentially offer them an
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Too bad for you that the decision has already been made that telling everything you know makes sense [thesun.co.uk].
Such a system also allows for disinformation by feeding your troops false data about related stuff. Telling them stuff that they can confirm makes it easier for them to swallow the false information that the soldier believes to be true.
Or do you not compartmentalize sensitive data any more?
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Link to a source that isn't banned from an entire city because it prints lies.
Re: National Security! (Score:2)
The verbiage remains the same. The emphasis has changed. After Vietnam, we tell our military members to resist only as long as is prudent. The whole training has been altered. You give the basics, tolerate a but, give more, tolerate a bit, give more, etc... You don't just blab, but you don't withstand torture, like we used to,
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The fact the USofA did not show any moral standing is another matter...
Re: National Security! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm all for privacy and all that... (Score:2, Insightful)
...but it seems rather reasonable that if a court of law orders you to submit something, the fact that you had stored in another country shouldn't be much of an excuse for not doing so.
Re:I'm all for privacy and all that... (Score:5, Insightful)
Except for the little detail that the other country has data protection laws that make it illegal to do so. An American court should not be able to override the law where it seems to have had no intent to hide the data from the American authorities.
Re:I'm all for privacy and all that... (Score:5, Insightful)
No one forces a multinational company into the shenanigans they play with moving things between jurisdictions. They could have considered beforehand whether they were painting themselves into a corner by doing something other than straightforward offering of services in different places.
The laws of Ireland are not the concern of the courts of the USA, nor vice versa. The US court has issued an order on the US corporate entity which that corporate entity had stipulated that it could meet. Either the US corporate entity was lying before when the said they could satisfy the order or they are lying now when they say they cannot. One way or another the US corporate entity lied to the US court.
If a multinational company wants to reap the benefits of having distinct corporate entities in different jurisdictions they also have the pay the costs, which consist of keeping track of when the obligations between the distinct corporate entities are constrained by the the different jurisdictions they were created to run in.
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It's not even clear how a ruling that the US should have access could be implemented... They can order US citizens to tell their colleagues in say the EU to hand over the data, but it might be illegal for those people in the EU to do so.
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One of the possible consequences might be that a court in Ireland finds both the U.S. judge and the person transferring the data in contempt of the irish court and asks the U.S. to expel them to face prosecution in Ireland.
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Sure, there's not a single person in the US who has access. Right. Absolutely. I'm convinced, really.
If I ran the MS operations in Ireland then I'd have assured that's the case four years ago, with ongoing audited processes to keep it that way.
I'd also expect any US based management to thank me for assuring regulatory compliance in Ireland.
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you cannot order a US citizen to commit a felony in another country.
Of course you can, you shitwick. Ever hear of the military? We're not sending people over to pass out cookies.
Re:I'm all for privacy and all that... (Score:5, Interesting)
Precisely. This is the US government asserting jurisdiction where it clearly has none, using the tenuous arguments of "cyberspace has no borders" and "corporate citizenship traces back to its origin". If the SCOTUS agrees, then the US has taken a step toward delegitimizing every other nation's sovereignty, over yet another skirmish in the "war on drugs" inflated into a bogus national security concern.
Re: US gov't asserting global jurisdiction (Score:2)
Further to this, there's one thing I'm sure of, on these legal matters:
The US government has the right to kiss my ass.
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Except for the little detail that the other country has data protection laws that make it illegal to do so. An American court should not be able to override the law where it seems to have had no intent to hide the data from the American authorities.
I agree. But MS is an American company and subject to American laws. I'd love for the outcome of this to be a finding of fact that states that MS is an American company despite pretending to be an Irish company, and American companies must abide by American law and court orders, regardless of physical location.
MS, Apple, and all the other little shits have their tax loopholes closed.
The US stays out of actual foreign companies's shit.
The rest of the world stops trusting Google, MS, Apple, etc. and we get
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Correct, but you can also get into interesting areas of the subsidiary being setup with binding corporate rules which can (in some cases) prevent the foreign entity from complying.
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Corporate structure only gets around laws like that because the government is corrupt and owned by the corporations.
Re:I'm all for privacy and all that... (Score:5, Interesting)
Any employee of this local subsidiary can simply refuse to comply with the order (I expect every single country has a law that allows employee to refuse employer order to break the law). If we are talking about European countries then it would also be impossible to fire him for this, as such firing would be deemed as reprisal by (local) court. Given that the company (local subsidiary) is not even really interested in firing him, it would even likely lead to employee keeping the job (reinstatement).
Re:I'm all for privacy and all that... (Score:5, Insightful)
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But it remains illegal to send EU data to the US without an EU court order.
This is not about the physical servers or their location, it is about the data protected by EU privacy law
The solution is simple, the US applies in the EU for such an order and they'll get the data.
A little obstacle is the US would have to show cause, the present action shows that's what is lacking...
You're missing the definition of a 'subsidiary'. (Score:4, Informative)
A subsidiary is a local company established under local laws and subject to all local laws. It will have its own board of directors - who may well all be employees of the owning company, but still have a separate duty to obey the law. If such a subsidiary breaks the local law, it is a criminal offence and the directors become liable. If they are outside the country, the assets of the company may be seized.
If MS sets up the Irish subsidiary to own and operate the servers, it will be impossible for that subsidiary to obey the US order - because it is a separate legal entity which the US courts have no jurisdiction over.
Between those two legal doctrines, the case is clear. If MS DIDN'T vest ownership in its Irish subsidiary, then it is an idiot. This appears to be part of the story here...
Re:You're missing the definition of a 'subsidiary' (Score:4, Interesting)
A subsidiary is a local company established under local laws and subject to all local laws. It will have its own board of directors - who may well all be employees of the owning company, but still have a separate duty to obey the law. If such a subsidiary breaks the local law, it is a criminal offence and the directors become liable. If they are outside the country, the assets of the company may be seized.
If MS sets up the Irish subsidiary to own and operate the servers, it will be impossible for that subsidiary to obey the US order - because it is a separate legal entity which the US courts have no jurisdiction over.
Between those two legal doctrines, the case is clear. If MS DIDN'T vest ownership in its Irish subsidiary, then it is an idiot. This appears to be part of the story here...
The court simply has to find that the Irish company is not actually a separate entity. And it's not. It's a shell set up to dodge the law (primarily to not pay taxes). They don't even try to hide it. It's trivial to trace it to actual US citizens. Declare the "Irish" subsidiary to be a shell under the actual ownership and control of Americans (because it is), then throw them in jail for hiding tens of billions from the IRS and breaking tons of other US laws (because they are).
Re:I'm all for privacy and all that... (Score:5, Interesting)
So why not go the way it has always been and should be in the future: Ask the court in the other country to help in that matter. If the U.S. court can prove that the data is really needed in a case, then it should be no problem to get it in a way legal in the country it is stored.
If the idea of U.S. jurisdiction to data stored in other country really gets track, the only result will be that companies will no longer directly operate in other countries, but always have local intermediates which are legally independent of the U.S. company.
Can't work: it's illegal (Score:2)
Ask the court in the other country to help in that matter.
The problem is that this can't work because what the US court wants is illegal under EU data protection laws. It would be like country X asking to extradite someone in the US because they criticised their leader. The US court would refuse, regardless of any extradition treaty, because it would be an illegal violation of free speech rights.
However, the US does have intelligence sharing agreements so I would have expected that the better route to this data would be to use those by having the local intelli
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As would a certain someone holed up in a certain embassy.
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What will happen then? Simply, U.S. companies will no longer have direct subsidaries in other countries, but local intermediares upon which they don't have any direct command. It will be joint ventures outside the U.S. jurisdiction. So what does the U.S. win with those expansion
Re:I'm all for privacy and all that... (Score:5, Informative)
...but it seems rather reasonable that if a court of law orders you to submit something, the fact that you had stored in another country shouldn't be much of an excuse for not doing so.
The whole crux of the matter is a thing US law enforcement uses called "The Fishing Expedition". If the US had a legitimate legal need for this information all they would need to do is petition a foreign court and get a foreign court order (not that hard to do if an actual investigation is being conducted). Unfortunately for US law enforcement, INTERPOL and foreign courts usually require probable cause and actual evidence of wrongdoing before they will issue such an order, thus the attempt to back-door around that requirement.
Re:I'm all for privacy and all that... (Score:5, Insightful)
even if the laws in that other country prevent you from doing so? European data privacy laws tend tp be much stronger than in the US, and US courts have no authority outside the US to overrule other countries laws. If Microsoft complied with the US court order it would be breaking the law in Ireland. They're between a rock and a hard place...
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There is no 12 miles offshore rule anywhere in the world
It is 30 miles and that are nautical miles and the next interesting boundary is the 200 miles boundary, exclusive commercial exploitation rights.
Alternatively, America could declare war on Europe. It would be interesting to see how the IRA respond to that! ...
Europe will stop supplying the US navy with parts
Depending how much they have stocked the carriers stop launching planes in less than 6 weeks.
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...but it seems rather reasonable that if a court of law orders you to submit something, the fact that you had stored in another country shouldn't be much of an excuse for not doing so.
Oh, well that's a grand idea. So I guess it's ok if a foreign court of law rules that it is ok to hack your elections, huh? The problem is that a while back folks in the entire world looked up to and respected the US legal system. And the governments of US were reciprocal in respecting the laws of other countries.
That legal system in the US is no more, gone to meet its maker, toast, pining for the fjord, stunned and resting. The governments and their puppet courts in the US no longer respect the laws o
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The problem is that a while back folks in the entire world looked up to and respected the US legal system.
70 or even 50 years ago, perhaps.
In relation to "normal" democratic nations the US law system is a joke. 300 years old bullshit that never got upgraded to modern times.
We laugh about you, and pity you same time. A simple civilian needs money to win a case, or not lose it, if he is accused. And you call that "law"? Retarded, isn't it?
Look at the Bill Clinton case. No one in Europe grasps what it was abo
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The problem is that a while back folks in the entire world looked up to and respected the US legal system. And the governments of US were reciprocal in respecting the laws of other countries.
That legal system in the US is no more, gone to meet its maker, toast, pining for the fjord, stunned and resting. The governments and their puppet courts in the US no longer respect the laws of its Constitution protecting its own citizens, and certainly don't give a rat's ass about the "rights" of any other human beings on the planet.
If you want to drill-down to the primary cause, it's because the US has abandoned standing for principles in favor of acting on interests which change with the breeze and the 24-hr news cycle.
It's the abandonment of eternal principles in favor of fleeting interests which has done the most to damage the US both domestically and internationally, IMHO.
Strat
Not sure about that (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure if you get a warrant to search someone's laptop or computer in one jurisdiction, and it turns out the laptop is currently in another jurisdiction, they can't make you go get the laptop and bring it back - they need to get a warrant for the jurisdiction it's in.
The issue is the limit of the judicial district. If you want to search something in a particular place, you get a warrant from a judge in that place. The warrants in question are claiming that since you can access the information anywh
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No, the order is to the US corporate entity. The US corporate entity previously stipulated they could comply with such an order.
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Actually we are not about to find out. (Score:5, Informative)
What we *will* find out is the opinion of an American court, which has no international power. The proper place for this request is the international court of justice in the Netherlands. Unfortunately the US is the only non-dictatorial country that doesn't recognize this court.
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What we *will* find out is the opinion of an American court, which has no international power. The proper place for this request is the international court of justice in the Netherlands. Unfortunately the US is the only non-dictatorial country that doesn't recognize this court.
I don't think this is about US courts thinking their search warrants are valid in the Ireland. The question is more like: can the US government, compel a US corporation to make available to US investigators an item of interest that is stored on foreign soil perhaps by remote access? Hell, if the US based corporation can be 'persuaded' to allow such access by means of threatening it with massive fines or worse there is no reason to involve the Irish government at all since Microsoft could simply make the dec
EU Commission (Score:3)
That might expose them to a civil lawsuit in Ireland but that would probably be easier to deal with than the 800 pound gorilla that is the US federal govt.
It's more likely to be a criminal lawsuit and expose them to the 850 pound gorilla that is the EU commission. The EU has a slightly larger economy than the US (by some measures) and an established record of swingeing fines on large US companies which ignore EU laws. Microsft itself has already been fined 1.3 billion euros.
Re: Actually we are not about to find out. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it's more like the US wants international law where it's favourable to the US, and wants to ignore it otherwise.
Of course, the US is not alone in this regard.
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Much of the world would love for the US to throw its weight around more, to coerce dictatorships and corrupt nations to clean up their acts instead of just twisting the arm of dictatorships to be friendly to US interests.
Ask yourself this (Score:5, Insightful)
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Extra crimes are listed if the blasphemous material is animated and has any music or songs.
Every faith and cult will pour funds into their legal teams to get specific accounts or identifiers.
Comment on a communist party, its history or leaders?
Have to show up for mentioning the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989?
Have to respond to some SJW in the USA over liking an author, movie or book on social media?
Some US celebrity has an issue with a negative movie or
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Extra crimes are listed if the blasphemous material is animated and has any music or songs.
I'm sure the punishment for that will pale in comparison with the punishment on the copyright infringements of the music used in the cartoon.
Tired of portrayal of US court issuing order in IE (Score:2)
The US court is issuing an order to the Microsoft US corporate entity, which is constrained by US laws, to produce data that the Microsoft US corporate entity previously told the court it could produce. However, the Microsoft US corporate entity at some point handed the data off to the Microsoft IE corporate entity, which is constrained by IE laws. It turns out that the Microsoft IE corporate entity is constrained by IE laws for sending that data back to the Microsoft US corporate entity to comply with the
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The proper way to handle it then is to forbid them from exporting data that might be necessary for US retrieval (well, forbid them from deleting it from US servers -- I realize that caching and such would require copying across initially,) rather than waiting until after the fact and then trying to walk all over a sovereign country's laws.
Of course, unless there's some apriori definition of "necessary for US retrieval," this amounts to having to retain local copies of all data on US servers. Though I can't
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And that, right there, is the one question that everybody seems to be ignoring. If the data refers strictly to US customers, why is it being stored only in Ireland? Unless Microsoft can come up with an answer for that that doesn't include trying to dodge around US laws, they should be subject to whatever sanctions are appropriate for their actions. (IAN
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Ordinarily I think these national boundary constraints would limit the reach of US courts and warrants, but with the "national security" flag raised I think it stops being solely a question of legalism and jurisdiction and then escalates into diplomacy, where there are other tools available to gain compliance.
Microsoft may say to the US government, "No, your warrant doesn't work because MS IE has to follow IE law."
All this will mean is that ultimately the State Department gets involved and begins negotiatin
What's good for the goose... (Score:2)
That's a double edged sword.. it also means that that US would have to give information to foreign governments stored on US servers.
I mean.. we wouldn't want to be hypocrites now would we?
psia (Score:2)
What astonishes me the most about this case is that the feds even bothered to *get* a warrant for overseas data in the first place.
With all the rhetoric about warrantless laptop searches at the border one would think the feds think our constitutional rights only apply on US soil.
As for my armchair lawyer analysis:
Data stored on servers located on foreign soul isn't even subject to US jurisdiction to begin with, so presumably the warrant in question would need to issue from a court of the nation in question,
Governments Do Not Give Sovereign Rights (Score:2)
Governments do not typically have laws that give Sovereign Rights to other governments. Other jurisdictions are largely ignored and not talked about. If a company wants to do business in America it follows American laws, in some cases even if the law breaking happened entirely out of the country(victims, data, server) it can still either comply or flee the country entirely.
Does Russia? China? North Korea? (Score:3)
Re-read the headline, replacing US with your favourite enemy.
Does it still hold?
If not, then the answer is "no".
US is not special in international law in any way.
If the US gets their way, US corporations are dead (Score:2)
Realize that if this flies and the US can force any US corporation to surrender their data, no matter where that data is stored on the planet, nobody in their sane mind would use a US company to store their data. Or process it.
MS has every good reason to fight this tooth and nail. And Amazon would have every reason to put money behind them. If the verdict goes in favor of the US government, pretty much any US cloud provider is dead in the water. Because then even US companies would rather store their data i
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This is already happening. For example, the MS cloud in Europe is outsourced to Deutsche Telekom, exactly to make sure MS does not have any customer access. This also means a major part of the revenue goes to Deutsche Telekom and not to MS. The reason for that many prospective European customers would not use this service otherwise due to very shaky legal ground.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander (Score:2)
I doubt that a ruling that the American government can seize data from overseas servers would have any power outside the borders of the USA, but it will cause a lot of headaches for companies operating inside the USA, and a LOT of headaches for American companies operating in foreign countries. The minefields are numerous, and a ruling favoring the American federal government is going to be bad for privacy in general, everywhere.
Huge logical sink hole (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the US has a case (Score:2)
I karma to burn
In a nutshell, the US government claims it should not matter where the data is stored. What matters is whether the company can access that data in the US.
I have to agree with this, if the data is accessible to the US and it is a US based Company then I think the warrant should be valid. BTW, they have a warrant so I think they are following laws anyway.
Of course over the past few years the US is doing everything it can to give companies incentives to leave, so what is 1 more :)
Re: (Score:2)
Complete BS. As you can basically access all data from anywhere (via this thing called "Internet"), this is not a distinction that matters in any form.
Let's ask it this way.... (Score:2)
...what would the US' reaction be if a Russian court wanted data stored on American-based servers?
Yeah.....
The US clearly does not (Score:2)
What we are about to find out is whether it _thinks_ it does have that right, which is a bit different. As we already see companies not storing data from European customers in their own systems but outsourcing that to European companies bound by European data protection laws, I guess id does not matter that much. US arrogance and greed already cost the US economy significantly.
Driving business away from the US (Score:2)
This would undoubtedly drive business away from US companies that provide information services to users overseas, we is precisely what we need for economy. Make America Great Again(tm)!
Joking aside, how is a drug investigation a matter of national security? If you're going to claim you need some power for national security reasons, then only use it for national security reasons. Don't then turn around and use it to prosecute drug offenses.
Why has noone mentioned this? (Score:2)
Why is Microsoft protecting drug traffickers?
The only answer that makes sense to me is that Microsoft is also engaging in the drug trade.
Re: (Score:2)
No you don;t get it.
There is PLENTY of evidence that Microsoft have always worked hand-in-glove with the FBI/CIA/NSA/whoever, by doing things such as including back doors in their encryption, in Windows, and providing tools to the government to extract data.
Microsoft just pretend to revolt every now and again in order to keep fooling the sheeplike morons that continue to buy their products into thinking that they are safe putting their personal data in Microsofts hands.
If you want something from overseas ... (Score:3)
You approach the "overseas", provide enough evidence, ask for a warrant.
Then the authorities, usually a judge, judges the evidence and issues a warrant.
Then you get what you want.
A company like FB/MS or any other can not simply provide data from a german server to an US authority. Regardless what the US man with the gun thinks.
Privacy and data is the holy grail in Europe, like your free speech. If a company would simply send data to the US without a court ruling/warrant here in Europe it would break so many laws it likely would run bankrupt.
How an US lawyer/congress/governor can come to the dumb idea he has a chance to make it law that his warrants are valid world wide is beyond me.
Setting Precidence (Score:2)
I'm sure we all have many concerns about this case and the privacy of our data. Here are my thoughts and questions:
1.) If it's really National Security, why didn't it go through the FISA courts? Or, why hasn't the NSA/CIA simply covertly recovered the data for them?
2.) If MS won't give you the data because you're in the US, why don't they contact the Ireland courts with their warrant and request some international assistance? Perhaps they'll issue a warrant for the data in Ireland and release it to the U
Re:US brands and their global profits (Score:4, Insightful)
"Consider hosting in your own nation, with your own local brands and their much stronger data protection."
That's almost exactly what I've recently told a customer who asked advice about web hosts. Sure, the el cheapo operations look attractive, until you find out where the servers are actually located.
Qatar or UAE? I don't think so. Sydney or Melbourne are just fine, thanks. I'd prefer to deal with my own country's rules.
Re: (Score:2)
We are not rude you fuck faced arse nugget!
Re: (Score:2)
Now, now Vladimir. Calm down.
Re: (Score:2)
US law applies worldwide to all US citizens.
But this particular problem stems from the principle of corporate personhood. An individual may be a US citizen. But a corporation can declare its left hand to be Irish. And then it is exempt from these laws.
Re: (Score:2)
no man can serve two masters.
A slave with two masters is a free man.