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Obama Administration Says the World's Servers Are Ours
An anonymous reader points out this story about the U.S. Justice Department's claim that companies served with valid warrants for data must produce that data even if the data is not stored in the U.S. Global governments, the tech sector, and scholars are closely following a legal flap in which the US Justice Department claims that Microsoft must hand over e-mail stored in Dublin, Ireland. In essence, President Barack Obama's administration claims that any company with operations in the United States must comply with valid warrants for data, even if the content is stored overseas. It's a position Microsoft and companies like Apple say is wrong, arguing that the enforcement of US law stops at the border. A magistrate judge has already sided with the government's position, ruling in April that "the basic principle that an entity lawfully obligated to produce information must do so regardless of the location of that information." Microsoft appealed to a federal judge, and the case is set to be heard on July 31.
Microsoft is based in the United States, so there may be some valid argument here that as an American company, Microsoft data regardless of where "in the cloud" it is stored is subject to American legal rulings.
The *real* question is what about companies that do business here but are based in other countries?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Just claim the data was lost due to a "hard drive crash." I mean, it worked for the IRS, right?
If this holds, US companies will have trouble competing abroad. Information belonging to a US firm's foreign customer company could be seized without possible recourse, unless the customer hires a US counsel.
Will this influence the tax gimmick where the HQ is overseas so the profits don't have to have taxes paid on them?
Why is it the money can evade the government but the data can't?
Does this mean that the US Gov is fine with those same companies turning over all their data to China if a Chinese official decides he wants it? Wonder what other companies this fun can extend to.
Effectively, though perhaps not in the strict legal definition, the purpose of a corporation is to make a profit.
As we can plainly see from Microsoft's conduct over the years, they will break whatever laws they can get away with to make that profit. This lawsuit isn't about Hotmail users' e-mail messages, this is about illegal or otherwise objectionable behavior that they are trying to shield in other countries.
If you're worried about your e-mail and data stored on Microsoft's servers, then let's not mix that up with a corporation's ability to hide illegal, unethical, or immoral behavior within a more compliant state's physical borders.
And the reaction will be that all high tech companies will just leave the USA.
The ruling pertains to anybody who does business in the US. So, they can leave the USA, as long as they don't sell anything in the USA.
That's not got an agenda behind it at all. what it means to say is US owns data of US companies/citizens even if they hide it outside the USA that seems some what reasonable.
I believe that Microsoft is right to claim the US government doesn't have jurisdiction over data stored outside of the United States. There simply MUST be a clear distinction maintained over where something is located, or country borders don't mean anything. If law enforcement in one country can force the production of evidence located in another country, then it's a free for all and borders have no meaning.
For instance... Lets say that a country (not the USA) has strict privacy laws about data collected and stored digitally and how it can be used. Lets say that they strictly forbid the sharing of specific kinds of data without written consent from the individual the data is about. If Microsoft operates in that country and collects data from it's users and then receives a court order for data from the USA for data stored in the country with strict privacy laws, what is Microsoft to do? Violate the court order and obey the laws under which the data was collected and stored OR violate the laws of another country? If borders mean ANYTHING, Microsoft must obey the local laws of the countries they operate in. So if the data is not here in the USA, the USA cannot force production of the data though the courts.
I understand that this is rife for abuse because it allows the hiding of criminal evidence overseas where it is beyond direct USA reach, but there are processes to obtain such evidence though diplomatic and international law enforcement channels in place. For Civil litigation, there are ways to work though other countries legal systems (albeit inconvenient and expensive ones). So, where I get there are problems, we really cannot just unilaterally decide we have the authority to demand a company produce data held overseas and force them hand over evidence which is not within our borders.
Finally, there is the "How would you feel if somebody did it to you?" test. Let's say the US was where the data was located and some other country was demanding that the data be sent back to them and felt they could enforce their will within the USA.... Would we not feel offended? I dare say we would.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
It's interesting that right at this moment, the Obama Adminstration is pushing an international treaty that will make it so that corporations do not have to comply with a country's laws. It's called "TISA" and it's so bad that it was supposed to be secret for five years after it's ratified and put into action. We only know about it because Wikileaks released a leaked portion of it.
Secret laws being adjudicated in secret courts. All at the behest of corporations who then want (like Microsoft) to not have to comply. It's a pretty ugly type of fascism.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Microsoft is trying the "you can't hold me responsible for yesterday's shooting because the gun is in my other pants" defense.
The law has _always_ held that if you are before the court, everything relevant to the case is before the court.
If this were not the case then the Tobacco and Asbestos companies could have just said "all those meeting minutes and research records are stored in our warehouse in mexico so ha ha, you all lose." Any company or person, on any issue, could just mail the evidence out of state or out of country and get off scott free.
That just never happened.
Just because the evidence is "on a computer" instead of "printed on paper" doesn't make the "other pants" defense viable.
The court is not reaching across a border. Microsoft is _here_. Microsoft does business _here_. The complaint is _here_, and the court is _here_. The proper legal response to "the other pants" gambit is to tell the guy in his shorts to send someone to go get whatever it is from those pants and bring it back.
Criminals don't just "move" their assets to other countries, they "hide" them because if it can be found it's on the table.
Every court. Every country. Every topic. From the beginning of time.
This is no different.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
For five years after it becomes law?
Exactly right. This treaty, which creates corporate sovereignty, is being negotiated in secret...from us. Do you really believe for a moment that it's also secret from the companies that will benefit, like Goldman Sachs?
Every president for the past 30 years has been playing for the same team. And the team does not include us.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It will take a long time for those that have linked their personal identity to the man to admit this point... but he always has been a fool.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.