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Patriot Act Dampening Cloud Computing?
Julie188 writes "Governments are turning the Internet into a cyberspace reflection of real-world geographic conflicts. One report says that the Canadian government is forbidding its IT organizations to use services that store or host the government's data outside their sovereign territory. They especially cannot use services where the data is stored in the United States because of fears over the Patriot Act. What kinds of jurisdiction issues might people face — think Google cooperating with the Chinese government — as cloud computing becomes the norm and your data is stored in 'offshore parts' of the cloud?"
Hey, what gives? You got anything to hide or what?
Some people do need to touch the hot stove. I stopped trying to keep them from doing it, people don't learn 'til they burn their hands.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The keys would be kept in Canada.
Well the newsworthyness is lower for the Canadians who have been dealing with hyper-aggressive Americans since 2001. There were a number of obvious abuses of power that clued Canada in quick.
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/26684res20060906.html
and most of those were just against other Americans by their own government.
If they treat their own citizens like that, why would we expect them to respect the rights of another nations citizens. Particularly over things like privacy which has been long protected to a higher standard in Canada than the US.
The rock, the vulture, and the chain
Actually, it's supposed to work that way under the US Constitution.
The Legislative branch makes the law. Second, the Executive branch executes the law. Last, the Judicial branch interprets the law. Each branch has an effect on the other.
Legislative Branch
Executive Branch
Judicial Branch
These checks are inefficient. And this inefficiency is borne out when one political party in the US system captures all three of the branches (as it has) and then, for the purpose of extending the power of that party, fails to exercise restraint and to provide a check on the other branches.
What I have noted is that the only branch that has actually decided to act in a manner consistent with Constitutional checks and balances is the Supreme Court. To the extent the Legislative Branch (or branches of the various States) have worked to mandate sentencing or require judges to act without their power to interpret, the Supreme Court has ruled these requirements as nothing more than guidelines. And this has gone on despite a rather radical shift in the Supreme Court to the political right. And I would agree with them, even though my own political direction differs strongly from many of their recent decisions and statements.
The Orwellian-named "USA Patriot Act" was a bill that was utterly altered -- in its entirety -- in the middle of the night by Bush's Attorney General, John Ashcroft within a committee that was also completely asleep at the switch. This is part of the rules of Congress, where a committee will take in a b
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
...you want your data to be secure?
Disconnect it from the net.
given the vast amount of digital leakage and other human errors, who are you really putting trust in?
It's not even about sensitivity. It's simply the uncertainty that the US government deems it their right to, at any time, for any harebrained reason, snoop into your data. No sane company or even governmental institution would accept that. It's like legalizing industrial (and other) espionage.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
May I sum it up?
The time of enlightenment brought us the separation of church and state. What we need is a second time of enlightenment, separating enterprises and state.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.