Microsoft's Smith Says Secret Subpoenas Hurt US Tech Companies (bloomberg.com) 62
Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith criticized secret data subpoenas sent by the government to cloud providers like his company and Apple, saying gag orders on requests for personal information undermine freedoms and are hurting U.S. technology companies in Europe. From a report: Last week the New York Times reported that during the administration of former President Donald Trump, the U.S. Department of Justice demanded records from Apple relating to two Democrats on the U.S. House Intelligence Committee. CNBC reported Microsoft received a confidential request for the personal emails of a Congressional staffer. Both companies were under nondisclosure orders that prevented them from talking about or alerting the subjects of the data seizures.
The U.S. government should change the rules so that people whose data is being demanded can be informed and choose whether to file a legal challenge to the subpoenas, Smith said Monday in an interview with Bloomberg Television. Microsoft in 2016 filed a case against the DOJ related to the gag orders, and a year later the department issued new guidelines it said would scale back the practice of these kinds of confidential requests. "If we fail to do so, we undermine longstanding fundamental freedoms in the country and, frankly, for those of us in the tech sector, we're put in the middle," Smith said. "This should be an issue where the government has to go most of the time to the individuals whose information they are seeking."
The U.S. government should change the rules so that people whose data is being demanded can be informed and choose whether to file a legal challenge to the subpoenas, Smith said Monday in an interview with Bloomberg Television. Microsoft in 2016 filed a case against the DOJ related to the gag orders, and a year later the department issued new guidelines it said would scale back the practice of these kinds of confidential requests. "If we fail to do so, we undermine longstanding fundamental freedoms in the country and, frankly, for those of us in the tech sector, we're put in the middle," Smith said. "This should be an issue where the government has to go most of the time to the individuals whose information they are seeking."
For the last fucking time... (Score:5, Funny)
... Microsoft doesn't have any of my data you fuckers! Stop subpoenaing them!
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... Microsoft doesn't have any of my data you fuckers! Stop subpoenaing them!
ATP ensures that Microsoft only has the "good data" and not the "bad".
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That's why I set my Evil Bit. Fools think it exposes their data, but it actually just scares adversaries away from it.
Proving the negation we aren't as bad as China (Score:5, Insightful)
Has anyone collected statistical data that indicates how good we are at hiding our secret government-driven spying versus how long the Chinese can keep the corresponding secrets? Not really an approach to a solution, but sort of a way to delimit the seriousness of the problem?
Me? I'm getting really tired of the freedom to try to pick the lesser evil. I guess that leads to the solution approach of living in a cave somewhere.
Non-Equivalent, Maybe? (Score:3)
There are several reasons that I think we would find it very difficult to measure this effectively...
The most obvious limit is that we have heavy reliance on our ability to penetrate the defences of a foreign adversary to tell us whether or our systems are compromised. If/when a hostile nation cracks an encryption scheme that we use, that hostile actor isn't going to declare that fact on the news that day. In fact, they won't even act on most of the i
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Basically concurrence, but I'm somewhat confused by your new Subject. I don't see any actual equivalences around here, though there are lots of similarities. No "maybe" about it?
Now I think I was guilty of the both-sides thing, though in my case the other side I was thinking of was less the government and more the (national) corporations such as Microsoft and Huawei. In other words, maybe I'm trying to rationalize or justify my willingness to use Huawei products against my unwililngness to use Microsoft's p
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I guess that leads to the solution approach of living in a cave somewhere.
Already been tried [bbc.com].
Priorities? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm much more concerned about the executive branch abusing it's power to hurt political opponents than whether anything is inconvenient to the richest tech companies, run by people who avoid paying taxes and lobby for unfair laws that benefit their special interests at the expense of everyone else.
That said, gag orders and classification are abused by government to hide information that's embarrassing or personally damaging to politicians (because it shows they broke the law, or did something legal but unethical or immoral), and has nothing to do with national security or protecting an investigation. This practice needs to be stopped, and it's great to see people with influence speaking up.
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Re: Priorities? (Score:2)
Apparently knowing the truth of what happened is so ugly and so egregious, we might actually have another revolution.
That's not about national security. That's about the security of the current regime in power. There's nothing in the Constitution about that. There is the intent of our founding fathers.
"A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. " - Thomas Jefferson
For a split second.. (Score:1)
Secret, secret, secret... (Score:5, Insightful)
Secret subpoenas, secret courts, secret trials. Prisons carefully placed outside of all jurisdictions, so that people can be detained indefinitely, with no legal recourse. CIA "enhanced interrogation" techniques. Spying on your own citizens (and everyone else), then chasing whisteblowers out of the country. The US is a poster child for human rights.
Could y'all please throw out your current government, and start over?
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If America wasn't a superpower, every member of the CIA would be considered a terrorist with a bounty on their heads.
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If America wasn't a superpower, every member of the CIA would be considered a terrorist with a bounty on their heads.
And every US president since Reagan along with Benjamin Netanyahu would be on a wanted list along with Omar al-Bashir.
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I'm not sure that applies to Dubya's daddy, and Clinton's misdeeds were of a different kind. What struck me most about the first four years of the Clinton administration was that he knew virtually nothing about the world outside the US' borders - it's the economy, stupid.
Dubya's daddy stood on a "four more years" platform but his foreign policy could hardly have been more different to Reagan's.
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Bill Clinton bombed a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan [slashdot.org], perhaps not coincidentally a week after he finally admitted to his affair with Monica Lewinsky. His administration murdered Americans at Ruby Ridge and then at Waco, leading to the bombing of the Murrah federal building in retaliation.
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Well, he did defend Kuwait's stealing of oil from Iraq, and his ambassador did tell Saddam that America was fine with him attacking Kuwait. Also there was a 100,000 unwilling conscripts killed by American forces before deciding not to attack the professional army. Telling the Kurd's that America had their back also didn't go well.
The good part was he kinda got rid of his wimp label.
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Well, at least we get a little bit of the "throw out your current government" effect when the other party takes over. Pretty sure that's the main reason this story has come out now. (But maybe the "when" will only be a hypothetical "if" after the Trumplicans manage to change the election rules... This time I sure don't see anyone like Teddy Roosevelt waiting in the wings to save the Republic.) In contrast, the Chinese are quite clear about rigging their elections even before the candidates are selected to m
Re:Secret, secret, secret... (Score:5, Informative)
They are all doing this. Look at the efforts the Obama administration went through to chase leakers. It was FAR more invasive. From the Associated Press and NY Times:
The Obama administration used the 1917 Espionage Act with unprecedented vigor, prosecuting more people under that law for leaking sensitive information to the public than all previous administrations combined. Obama’s Justice Department dug into confidential communications between news organizations and their sources as part of that effort.
In 2013 the Obama administration obtained the records of 20 Associated Press office phone lines and reporters’ home and cell phones, seizing them without notice, as part of an investigation into the disclosure of information about a foiled al-Qaida terrorist plot.
AP was not the target of the investigation. But it called the seizure a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into its news-gathering activities, betraying information about its operations “that the government has no conceivable right to know.”
Obama’s Justice Department also secretly dogged Fox News journalist James Rosen, getting his phone records, tracking his arrivals and departures at the State Department through his security-badge use, obtaining a search warrant to see his personal emails and naming him as a possible criminal conspirator in the investigation of a news leak.
“The Obama administration,” The New York Times editorial board wrote at the time, “has moved beyond protecting government secrets to threatening fundamental freedoms of the press to gather news.”
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These measures wouldn't be needed if the US Federal Government didn't employ 2.7 million civil servants, all of whom are potential sources. President Grant's administration employed a mere 600 people.
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I agree. In addition to the many leak vectors it creates for government "secrets", it is a scandalous waste of taxpayer money. It amounts to the federal government sopping up folks that could otherwise be contributing to the GDP (rather than just recycling tax collected from people who ARE contributing back into the economy through spending their paychecks) and crowding out private sector businesses in the labor market.
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Are you counting the military and the post office? If so, I'm sure Grant had more than 600 people on the federal payroll.
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NAK. Both sides exist, but they are NOT equal. In badness, goodness, or any other qualitative attributes. Even quantitative similarities are only similar within the accuracy of the measurements. (Does that imply that only parametric statistics even have the potential for accuracy?)
Even worse, there are always more than two sides.
But it's predictable and even expected Sophism these years.
Re:Secret, secret, secret... (Score:4, Funny)
Competent government affects corporations? (Score:2)
Definitely read a story along those lines, but it was a long time ago. I think it was actually science fiction.
On the one hand, I have to admit that any random jerk couldn't do a worse job than Louie Gohmert. At anything.
But on the other hand, I think there are important problems that need to be solved and competent leadership is even crucial to solving most of them.
I'll go ahead and throw in one of my recent thought experiments to consider. How about a two-phase election? One phase (though it could be carr
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Actually, the response would be, "great, hookers and coke and a good job where I do nothing at the end"
Every twenty years, he said. Its been 260 now. (Score:3)
One of the primary architects of the US government (Thomas Jefferson) thought that we'd have to do it about every twenty years. He, and other founders, put things in the Constitution and early laws and precedents, so the population would be able to do so when they chose.
Among these things are the protections for freedom of the press, of speech, and the right to bear arms, so the popula
Every twenty years, he said. Its been *245* now. (Score:2)
Oops. Fixed the number in the text but missed it in the subject.
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Has there ever been a violent revolution where the government was overthrown and things were better? The odd war of succession like when America left the British Empire has sorta worked out along with the odd non-violent revolution such as when the Soviet empire collapsed.
Back in the day (after the Black Death), there were lots of peasant revolts, with torches and pitchforks, every one of them failed. It's hard going up against a professional well led army and doing it for any length of time when the crops
Thomas Jefferson (Score:2)
As a non-US citizen/resident looking at this from the outside, I can't help thinking that the USA is getting close to a point where a civil war is needed to turn things around.
There are so many problem countries in the world.
Sometimes, I find myself wishing for a good apocalypse that will kill off 90% of the world's population, so that the planet can get a fresh start.
A
Re: Thomas Jefferson (Score:2)
What about TV series? I am finally finishing The 100. I think in generally TV Series do post-apocalypse best.
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Thank you.
Re: Thomas Jefferson (Score:2)
A lot of the time, the 100 felt like watching "a boy band meets mad max". It was watchable but it had way too many plot holes, and I swear there wasn't a single episode where they used the word "people" less than 100 times.
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That's a good description of it. It's kind of like a lot of the longer running vampire series. They often are very "teen drama".
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The 100, while sometimes miring itself it angsty drama, did a pretty good job of showing the post apocalyptic world. We finished it up a couple weeks after the series ended and had followed it from the beginning. Neither my wife nor myself could stand Clark, but there was enough happening around her to keep the show interesting. Those last couple seasons with all the time jumps got tough to keep track of week to week, but watching them altogether would probably make that a bit easier to follow.
It's a rar
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For a good time, watch BBC's mid-1970s "Survivors." It's good show and I mean that without any irony. I mean it.
But like anything else on TV, it lives within the constraints of its creation. My favorite example is the rabies episode. It's very clear that someone looked up rabies in their encyclopedia, saw that it causes victims to become "hydrophobic," looked up the meaning of that word, and decided "ok, we need to work that into the plot" with awesome unintentional hilarity. (But don't take this as a slam.
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The US JUST HAD a Stalinist-style Marxist revolution and is working on the post-revolutionary purge. You're reading the equivalent of the Cold War era Pravda and Izvestia, plus occasional shouts from the other factions that manage to evade the censorship.
Did you eat right-wing, pro-Trump propaganda?
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Did you eat right-wing, pro-Trump propaganda?
I tried it but it made me constipated... I ended up completely full of $#!T
Why should I trust a US company ? (Score:3, Insightful)
The US government keeps weapons of mass destruction on bases in our countries (something which surveys of Europeans show that a majority have wanted an end to for decades) and flies bombers over our heads, and you only have to look at what happened with Julian Assange to see that the US somehow manages to apply their laws here. The Chinese government does not / can not do any of those things so actually poses less of a direct risk to us.
Now there are plenty of reasons why we should be critical of China, for example over their appalling abuse of the Uyghurs, so we are critical of China. But there's no particular reason to trust a US company over a Chinese company. Personally I prefer not to share data with any of these foreign companies and use European options where possible (e.g. startpage [startpage.com]. )
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About Assange:
The British have been the lapdog of the USA for decades. Every times there was a bit of disagreement in the EU or NATO, Great Britain pushed for a US-friendly and subservient stance. That they would bend their own laws to please their masters is hardly surprising.
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The US government keeps weapons of mass destruction on bases in our countries (something which surveys of Europeans show that a majority have wanted an end to for decades)
Sounds OK here. Let the EU start paying for ALL of it's security. It's the only fair thing. Make the peaceniks and budget cutters over here happy too because all our service members can come home.
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This is much the same, but with added weapons of mass-destruction. It's gone on for far too long.
In the 1940s the US joined the second world war after it had been raging for a while and contributed greatly t
What is hurting tech companies... (Score:3)
Build a better mousetrap (Score:2)
Intertwine alerting the end user of an unencrypted copy being made into the core of the product. Make it so difficult for these requests to be copied without automatically triggering an alert to the end user that they can't keep it secret.
Translation: Hurt == Costs us (Score:2)
Sounds like MS would just like to, literally, pass the buck. /s
It's fine the US Government does it (Score:1)