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Foreign Data Unsafe From US Patriot Act, Says American Law Firm
natecochrane writes "A prestigious law firm warns non-U.S. businesses their data is unsafe from costly and invasive raids by American law enforcement even if they host their data in their own countries. The wide interpretation of the USA Patriot Act ensures U.S. cops can legally demand data from almost anyone, anywhere for any reason and countries and their citizens are largely powerless to resist. The advice has resonance with the arrest this week of Kim 'Dotcom' on alleged copyright violations in the U.S."
Well, that demand doesn't need to be answered.
and we can legally tell them to go fuck themselves. Shame we don't do it though.
The advice has resonance with the arrest this week of Kim 'Dotcom' on alleged copyright violations in the U.S.
Except that, AFAIK, the Patriot Act doesn't have anything to do with Copyright. Or was it amended?
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Kim Jong Un, of course. Place your new datacenters in fabulous downtown Pyongyang!
I wonder how a country can have such power over pretty much every other country in the world. Anyone care to explain?
"countries and their citizens are largely powerless to resist"
They need a nation-sized Rape-aXe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-rape_device#Rape-aXe
So, bascially they take took FATCA and expanded the idea to get a worldwide power to get data on anyone. nice.
So, what is the US going to do? Insert a SEAL team via helicopter to take down servers in a foreign country? There is a word for this kind of theorizing. "Stupid". Foreign countries are powerless to resist demands from the US because of a US law? Right.
The US is run by criminals and warmongering thugs who think they control the world.
"Largely powerless to resist"... what a load of trash. Just let them try, and see what kind of "powerless resistance" comes back at them. These are fascist laws.. and here in Europe, we've learned a lesson or two on that subject which makes us less inclined to raise our right arm to the furher again.
The US also has the power to launch one thousand nukes and wreak devastation across the globe. Why aren't we writing articles about that?
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
So if US cops "demands" Iran hand over the details of their nuclear scientist's e-mail traffic it is just going to happen?
I call bullshit. The only reason they'd be able to acquire such data would be if the host country agreed to let it happen. That would be a problem with the host country's lack of privacy protection for their own citizens, and has little to do with the patriot act itself.
Yeah, try to get something from Russia ;)
Team America: World Police
Intended as satire. Used instead as guidebook.
lets really hurt these arseholes & take down their online Porn empire...
SELECT * FROM Dubya WHERE clue > 0; 0 rows returned
"US cops can legally demand data from almost anyone, anywhere for any reason and countries and their citizens are largely powerless to resist"
US can demand anything from almost anyone, anywhere for any reason and countries and their citizens are powerless to resist
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
The real State of the Union is very weak. The US debt is bigger than ever, the liberties of people are weaker than ever, the government is more powerful in terms of what it can do to individuals (and even citizens of other countries) than ever.
The economy of USA (and Europe) are weak and getting weaker, the inflation is higher and getting higher, the wars are long and getting longer, the corruption - meddling of government in business and as a corollary meddling of business in government is enormous. Iran and India are now trading oil for gold, and in USA people who show the obvious illegitimacy of government power are thrown to jail - political prisoners.
Do not forget.
Government is supposed to be there to protect your liberties and freedoms, but this does not mean to protect your liberties and freedoms against other non-government civilians.
Government is inherently evil, but it must exist to occupy the space where otherwise the evil would exist that didn't have public legitimacy on its side.
The point of government is to exist to occupy space of where the inherent evil lives and to protect the individuals from the inherent evil that occupies that space. Now, whether it is realistic to expect some entity to occupy space of evil and not turn evil itself ... (and my argument goes further, but I am not going there in this discussion), but basically government exists to protect people FROM ITSELF.
It is the government force that we are all vulnerable to. Other individuals and companies - that's a private matter.
Now governments failed people completely, including the court system, the Supreme Court in USA as well, so this just shows how inherent the evil is and how it permeates into whatever entity that is occupying that space.
But the Constitution is law above government, and government broke that law long ago and it continues to brake it every day. Government protecting people from government does not mean that government must protect people from other people.
The theory of government and understanding of government is completely flawed.
The system that exists to supposedly protect people from crime should not be the same and must not be conspiring with the system that exists to occupy the space of evil government power.
Once you mix together the system of government, which is supposed to provide you with freedoms from itself, and you mix it with system that may be set up to provide you with security from other individuals, you end up with a government system that has the tools and the will to destroy your liberties.
The separation of power (legislative, judicial, executive) in government is not done correctly and that's where the fault in current government theory shows itself.
You can't handle the truth.
MegaUpload maintained a large nexus in the US, which is what exposed them to prosecution. We can disagree about the extradition (not particularly in favor of it myself, but it is probably legal under treaty), but if an American citizen set up a business with a nexus in NZ or Germany that severely broke their copyright laws, they would be fair game the moment they set foot on their territory or of a sympathetic state's territory. Let's not conflate these issues. They're bad enough on their own.
heh, I thought the act was put into place to address foreign non-uniformed combatants. It'd be funny to see him get off on it's misapplication,... as might set one hell of a precedent in American law.
lets see the USA charge head first in to China or Russia like they do the weaker little nations, i bet the other two big boys on the block wont lay down to having their sovereignty violated like the rest of the world is forced to tolerate
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
The patriot act and all these powers were granted to the government to fight the war... to hunt down the terrorists and snuff them out. That was the point.
To that end, I don't think many people would have a problem with the powers IF they used them expressly for that purpose and no other. Sadly, government being run by people and people being people... the power is abused... frequently. My favorite is the guy that got his ex-wife on a terror/no-fly list so she couldn't fly out of town. There are other examples but few are that petty.
The patriot act needs to be rescinded. It has done most of the work it was put in place to do in the first place. We're pulling our troops back... it's time to retire the act. By all means, let the CIA still go hunting for bad guys. It was foolish ever to chain them. That didn't happen until the Clinton Administration and that point is by some credited as being one of the things that allowed 9/11 to happen in the first place. But the legal authorities granted by the patriot act beyond letting the CIA do it's job should be retired.
As to data not being legally safe in other countries... US law has no effect on foreign countries. They don't have to comply unless they wish to comply. In which case it has more to do with what those countries wish then the US.
Really, if you're afraid for your data... fear the NSA... they don't bother with warrants and never have... not their game. They get the information because they can not because they have a right. I don't especially fear them though... they're always after bigger fish then little ol' me.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
It looks like there is a great business opportunity here - set up cloud services and guarantee in writing that (a) no data will be hosted in the USA, it's protectorates, or in extremely US-friendly countries (England, Canada), and (b) you won't turn over data to any US authority under any circumstance.
Don't blame the US courts, or even the cloud providers. Blame the lazy sods who thought outsourcing security to a single cloud provider sounded like less work than doing it inhouse.
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
Pax Romana's a bitch, but not if you're Rome.
Unfortunately, TFA is right. Look at what we did with Spain. Look at what were pressuring Canada into doing.
"Nice X ya got there, it'd be a shame if Y were to happen to it."
Why blow someone up, then they can't make you money. Duh.
"Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
Dear American User:
We are very sorry, but your government is behaving like a spoiled child that thinks it can get it's way by screaming and kicking it's feet. While normally we would not be terribly concerned by this childish display, we are annoyed that you, the parents, are not doing anything to bring them under control.
As a result, you will not be permitted to utilize our service until you rein in your spoiled brat government and teach them proper manners, and how to act like a world citizen.
Thank you.
"Name of Service"
[End Of Line]
If that's true and safe harbour arrangements are not exempted it will be illegal for any European company storing data that can be linked to an individual to us a US company to store, hold or process it. Its lucky that India and China don't have the same laws.
Just to make it clear, the act is called the "U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act". It is an acronym. I know that under the British style guide, acronyms may be writtenas though they were proper nouns, but that is not appropriate here.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Because if they're flying anywhere near US airspace, even going past to South America, for example, the US government will whisk that exec out the plane and arrest them for breaking the US law.
Let's be sure to always write it PATRIOT so people know it's a acronym and hopefully ask questions. Seems like every bill is given a nifty acronym or backronym, usually with the intent of glossing over how horrid these bills are. I could propose a "Cats Underwater Teeth Extraction" bill, and call it the "CUTE" bill and nobody would be the wiser. You wouldn't vote against something "Cute" would you?
Worse is the more common case; the actual bill title seems perversely the opposite of what the bill accomplishes. "Clear Skies Initiative/Act", anyone?
It looks like we REALLY are becoming as much of a rogue nation as Iran. :(
Ironically, we're involved in the same debate, but in reverse.
We are involved in an 'outsourced email' discussion, and some companies (ie: G-something) say, quite literally, "we can't tell you what countries your data will be in, only which ones it won't be in". When pressed on how they come up with that, they say "well, it's not in the ones where we don't have datacenters".
Other companies (ie: M-something) have ITAR certified solutions that assure you it's US datacenters and US citizens.
I can understand Canada not warning their citizens about other countries' laws, but as a US entity involved in R&D we have the same concerns. Hey, at least they're OUR laws and OUR courts we can challenge them in.
... Try to do that with countries you don't have bilateral agreements and lets count the middle fingers you'll get in return. "I'm sorry, according to our law we're entitled to the data that you are hosting in your country! It's our law, we're right!". Reply: "sod'off fecking wanker! We're not the U.S. of A.! And we fecking don't have any agreement with you."
The wide interpretation of the USA Patriot Act ensures U.S. corps can legally demand data from almost anyone, anywhere for any reason and countries and their citizens are largely powerless to resist.
FTFY, but that is how I originally read this article.
Time for more coffee.
If government isn't evil, then people (hippies, conservatives, libertarians, you, etc) won't have something to whine about and blame everything on.
More important though, humanity is evil, so it's fitting that human government is evil too. If there are alien civilizations out there that have benevolent, good governments, then I can't wait for the day when our evil human ways spread to the stars one day and conquer those bastards.
*hums Imperial March*
Dun dun DUN, dun dun DUN, dun dun DUN...
Unfortunately, even this is not enough. The non-US company would have to ensure any and all contact with the US is prevented, to ensure that there is not even a crack of a sliver of the door to US jurisdiction.
The question here is how compliant the local government is when the US asserts jurisdiction. If you live in a country that likes to suck up to the US, like most western countries, you may be out of luck even with a local company.
You might have better protection from abuse of US jurisdiction in a country like Russia (not too friendly with the US, and still powerful enough to be not easily bullied). Of course, you better avoid angering the local bigwigs ;-)
C - the footgun of programming languages
While the US is out and about signing treaties and agreements with foreign governments that allow us to seize foreign files and evidence you can bet that we are giving other nations the right to do the same within the US. If that were not true we could never get them to sign those treaties and agreements. One issue where this has come to light in the past is in outrageous and deliderate gouging on international phone calls. You make a call to a nation in Africa for twelve minutes and get a phone bill with $3,000 for that one call. You refuse to pay and your local phone company gets involved and cuts you off as they are forced to honor reciprical arrangements.
No treaty or agreement should have any effect upon US citizens within our own borders.
nobody expected the Spanish opposition.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
FWIW, Freshfields is a UK-headquartered law firm, one of the Magic Circle law firms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshfields_Bruckhaus_Deringer
Ever lovable and always scrappy,
kawaii
The dems pushed RomneyCare, but removed some of the more liberal elements because even the conservatives refused them (since it was a democrat saying it). And Obama's right-hand-man has many times slagged off progressives with impunity.
The Obama democratic party is more conservative than the Nixon republican one, and in many areas, more conservative than the Reagan republicans.
This sounds like bullcrap to me.
No matter what some egoistic Americans may think, US law and US police have no jurisdiction in other countries, unless by special agreement.
You took the dictionary meaning of the word, when gp post was talking more about the label. Politics is all about corrupting the meaning of words so they don't apply any more. Orwell taught us that, if you didn't learn it anywhere else.
"U.S. conservatives" are more than happy with this type of thing. Looking at voting history, the "U.S. conservatives" typically vote for such things en masse, with maybe a few consistent dissenters like Ron Paul. The liberals vote for it too, but support is more spotty and this group is the one that goes on record with opposition sound bites.
Basically, Republicans will vote for anythng that gives police or military more power, because they appear to believe in small government everywhere but the military. And they would grant the military and/or police the authorization to go into your bedroom and make sure you're not having gay sex, sex for pleasure, using contraception, or doing anythhg that makes them feel "icky". That is the perspective of "U.S. conservatives".
They all want the same thing, big government, they just don't agree which parts to shrink or embiggenate.
Why are you talking about people? It's irrelevant. I don't think you know what topic we're on. If a company blurs the lines of operation such that some work is done in the United States, US law applies where that line is crossed.
If you use an Australian company that houses e-mail in a Gmail server in the US, that e-mail can be snooped. Even if no one from the US is administering that server, its physical presence is what determines the law, not the person doing the work, or which company owns it.
This is really no different from shipping something that is only illegal in the US through the US to get from Mexico to Canada. It is not allowed in the US, so it is confiscated and people probably go to prison. Or a Canada-to-Canada phone call where the wires go through some part of the US, those can be tapped if someone decides it's necessary. Sovereignity is completely irrelevant.
Sure, doing these things might cause "a bit of bother" but that will pass and back to business as usual. Don't touch the US or you will be subject to its laws in some fashion.
The current administration has received large amounts of money from people who have significant interest in this area. No real big efforts have even been made to hide this fact. I suspect the slew of anti-piracy web talk and arrests are due to the failure of sopa and pipa. Since their failure likely made some people really pissed off. This is most likely the administrations way of calming them down a bit. Hey there is a big expensive campaign year ahead and those don't pay for themselves!
In 1609, Hugo Grotius published "Mare Liberum", that became the basis for international naval law as we know it. His treatise was born out of conflict, a conflict of interests between England and Holland. Basically, it states that beyond the three-mile limit, now more of a 12-mile limit, but still a very viable and respected one.
What we urgently need is an equivalent corpus of international law, protecting the rest of the world against USA interference with and encroachment upon both national and individual liberties. The situation is rapidly becoming intolerable.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Carnabuci said interpretation of the US Patriot Act was so broad it captured almost any communication or data held in the US or by Australian businesses with US "connections".
She related the story of how a Canadian Privacy Commissioner sided with US authorities to force CIBC to divulge private customer records because the bank outsourced data processing to a US company.
Its not just any "foreign data" that is at risk. It is foreign data held by firms with any kind of relationship with a US company, citizen or resident. True, Patriot Act jurisdiction reaches beyond data held by foreign concerns on behalf of a US entity. Once they have an American customer, all of their records are exposed.
If you (outside of the USA) do business with a company in your country and they can certify that they do no business or have no connections with any US companies or individuals, your data is safe. Sure, that will make lepers out of Americans around the rest of the world. But its a price we have to pay for electing the leadership we've got.
Have gnu, will travel.
'States Rights' as in: a State's right to enslave, punish, or persecute the minority races, religions, or sexual orientations. That's the main problem with Libertarianism: the chant of 'get government off our backs' frequently harbors some very evil motivations.
The patriot act is only legal in the USA, not outside, as the US has no authority outside it's borders..
And even a company that has it's main office in the states, but it's servers in a country like the netherlands, the law of THAT country is in effect, not the US one.
Otherwise any country would make their own laws which gives them the right to just take anything they want.
Stupid american goverment think they own the world and can do anything they please, guess what, NOT!
The lawyerization of the world is proceeding splendidly.E-discovery bolsters lawyer employment but destroys free communication.Through expanded copyright and the use of fed criminal law, American lawyers have reshaped the Internet to the benefit of Hollywood and every dictatorship on the planet.But why let the freedom of 7 billion people interfere with Disney's bottom line.
/not---- jeese, this world ***S~ ~U~ ~C~ ~K~ ~S***
your confusion.
The sad truth is, the only countries which are sure they aren't going to be raped by the US
are the countries with nuclear capability.
I am embarrassed to be American, and I would like to say to all those from other countries that
it is only a tiny minority of Americans who approve of much of what the US does in the international
arena these days. But frankly, the average American citizen is utterly powerless to influence these
things. I tried : I voted for Obama, and what I got was a sucker punch in the form of Obama being
a lying sack of shit just like all the rest of the politicians.
or at least, one that counts as a military power. It's not a pleasant though, but we'll just blockade your country. We don't really bother with Cuba because they're just a wedge issue to keep Florida voting Blue, but rest assured if you rile up the American ruling class you're in trouble. I remember Belgium tried to do it. They were selling CD duplicating hardware w/o serial codes built in (so you couldn't trace back duplicates). We threatened a trade embargo and they backed down...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
What does this have to do with the patriot act?
TFS says "U.S. cops can legally demand data from almost anyone." It seems to be a cop can ask anyone anything. You don't have to answer. Especially if you are another country. Patriot act or no patriot act.
you don't need an incentive.
Right there is the core problem with communism, flower power, and dare I say, libertarianism. They will never work because they completely disregard observable human nature in favour of the fantasy that their ideology is so great that people will somehow forget about greed, envy, avarice, ect and just start being nice to each other while snacking on the fruits that magically spring forth from the font of their chosen ideology.
Star Trek replicators could certainly satisfy everyone's needs, but nothing will ever satisfy everyone's wants. In fact I'm pretty sure one of the first uses of such technology would be a dictator replicating his loyal thugs as fast as he can.
Since you don't have to work
Hahaha. Sorry but in the 80's a lot of people (including me) thought that industrial robots would replace factory workers and by the early 21st century and we would all be working 3-4 days a week instead of 5-6. To a large extent factory workers have indeed been replaced by robots on a massive scale, the robots also took over a lot of clerical jobs such as bank tellers, but despite all the "spare time" these robots have created we're still working the same hours to maintain the same standard of living.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
How long before the U.S. gets invaded? Its only a matter of time before we piss the rest of the world off enough, in the name of profit margins, for the world to declare America as EVIL?
Oddly enough, the conservative party here in Oz call themselves the Liberal Party because freedom is like motherhood and tasty pastry treats, everyone supports it. However the pertinent question to ask is; freedom to do what?
Conservative freedom: the freedom to kill millions by polluting our tap water.
Liberal freedom: the freedom to kill millions by removing chlorine treatments that pollute our tap water.
Liberal freedom: the freedom to get high and make an arse of yourself.
Conservative freedom: the freedom to get drunk and make an arse of yourself.
Likewise, "progress" is just another motherhood concept, with the pertinent question being; progress by what means, toward what goal?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Labour isn't part of the UK Government. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are. And Labour is not a 'liberal' party, it is a democratic socialist party. So, you don't know who is in government, you don't understand what the Labour Party is, and you apparently can't tell the difference between the parties despite the Labour Party's opposition to the government's cuts, NHS reorganisation, tuition fee increases, the introduction of free schools and the VAT rise. The 'financier buddies' of the Labour Party are overwhelmingly members of trade unions.
Try reading a newspaper or watching the news once in a while. It'll be easier once you take off the tinfoil Faraday cage over your head.
Close, but not quite. That dictionary definition doesn't say that conservatives oppose new laws in general, it says that conservatives "support, at most, minimal and gradual change in society." Thus, new laws that support "traditional institutions" are welcome to a conservative. A law that, for example, forbids marriage between two men or two women would be welcome to a conservative as it supports traditional ideas about what marriage is.
A "progressive" or "liberal" will often support new laws that promote a change in society. They usually hope that the change will be beneficial. A law that allows marriage between two men or two women would be welcome to a progressive as it supports a new, presumably better, attitude towards what marriage is.
Few people are interested in less law; libertarians are the only ones that come to mind.
If conservatives are so pro-liberty, why are they so against things like gay rights and gay marriage? Surely a fundamental part of liberty is being allowed to choose who you want to love and marry?
I can accept gay people wanting to be together, and if they want to have a "union" of some sorts, that is fine by me. I also think that a "gay couple" should be entitled to the same government or otherwise benefits that a married man and woman have. They should not be denied that.
But marriage is by definition between a man and a woman. Therefore two men or two women cannot be married. Plain and simple. "Gay marriage" is an oxymoron and makes as much sense as "slow fast", "bright dark", "up down", "low high", "stupid smart" and so forth.