Slashdot Mirror
Proposed Law Would Limit US Search Warrants For Data Stored Abroad
An anonymous reader writes On Thursday, a bipartisan law was introduced in the Senate that would limit US law enforcement's ability to obtain user data from US companies with servers physically located abroad. Law enforcement would still be able to gain access to those servers with a US warrant, but the warrant would be limited to data belonging to US citizens. This bill, called the LEADS Act (PDF), addresses concerns by the likes of Microsoft and other tech giants that worry about the impact law enforcement over-reach will have on their global businesses. Critics remain skeptical: "we are concerned about how the provision authorizing long-arm warrants for the accounts of US persons would be administered, and whether we could reasonably expect reciprocity from other nations on such an approach."
horse.
Am I reading this right? The law would limit data belonging to US citizens but let corporate owned data be unobtainable?
WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!
And the U.S. fails Ethics 101 again.
to enforce laws we should be adhering to already. Right.
Say a friend sets up a Google Drive account in Albania, and I add content there.Would that data be subject to seizure? Would a customer, then, be more likely to buy a service from a Non-US service provider, as the privacy laws in the US are so porous? Sounds like a slippery slope to me.
Time for a new Political party in the US (or two!) One is off the rails Other cant pony up a leader.
Don't you just love the smell of electioneering in the morning?
Just another toothless regulation to be watered down in the run up to November.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
...make a new law to make breaking the original laws illegal.
Well certainly anything that moves this from precedent and complexities of corporations winging it to black letter law would be a net gain. The role of search warrants and how to handle international issues should be between the USA government and the EU. Tech companies should just be following the law. I think everyone agrees the stored communication act (1986) needs updating
Now a few points:
Europeans keep citing European laws Microsoft's council has not been able to show that there was any Irish law in conflict with the previous warrants: Second, while many media reports have claimed that the decision was contrary to foreign privacy laws protecting the requested emails, it was clear from the transcript that Microsoft never raised such a conflict of law. (“Microsoft . . . has not been able to point to any specific provision of Irish law that in any way forbids it from handing the data over.”) Some commentators claimed that the data must be subject to foreign privacy protections because Ireland is part of the European Union, and thus the data must be subject to the European Data Protection Directive. However, what they failed to appreciate is that the European Data Protection Directive, by itself, is not legally binding. It needs to be ratified as national law by each member state. As a result, there are variations across the member states as to what is allowed and what is prohibited. Accordingly, the impact of an actual conflict of law on future warrants remains undecided.
Moreover the issue was always that USA people had control of the data: because Microsoft could access and retrieve the requested documents from a terminal within the United States, even though the actual search and retrieval would occur abroad, the data was still under Microsoft’s control in the United States, and thus properly subject to the SCA warrant.
Instead of weird exceptions like this, which are likely to cause only further problems, the US should reduce the intrusiveness of law enforcement in general. Stop the war on drugs, simplify the tax code, consistently require court warrants for searches, etc., and we could reduce online searches by 90%
Isn't it amazing how partisanship disappears when it comes to protecting corporate the political class' interests?
You know folks, when they DO work together, look out because somehow we are all getting fucked in the ass.
Instead of trying to block certain aspects of searches we should just bite the bullet and get a Privacy amendment to the Constitution. Certainly where laws may have been broken there's an interest in seeing justice done but US laws should only apply to the US and citizens who reside there. For example, the IRS would no longer be allowed to shake down the Swiss or US citizens lawfully living in other nations. This would also mean that information we trust to third parties would be considered private and would overturn that horrible judicial precedent that has allowed this horseshit to go on long enough. While we're at it also lets exclude every fucking company from mining our daily activities for fun and profit.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Cameras stopped rolling? Yes?
Laws are for citizens, we politicians are exempt.
What happens If foreign countries outlaw, or even makes it a criminal offense to hand over data held in servers physically located in the country without a valid order from their own courts?
Instead of weird exceptions like this, which are likely to cause only further problems, the US should reduce the intrusiveness of law enforcement in general. Stop the war on drugs, simplify the tax code, consistently require court warrants for searches, etc., and we could reduce online searches by 90%
Claim: Stop the War on Drugs
Problem: Government including law enforcement organisations would loose power over the populace
Claim: Simplify the tax code
Problem: Government and special interest groups including multi-national (mis)accounting firms would have reduced profits while loosing power over the populace
Claim: Consistently require court warrants for searches
Problem: Government including law enforcement organisation deem themselves above the law and would loose power over the populace
Claim: We could reduce on-line searches by 90%
Problem: Government including law enforcement and intelligence organisations would loose power over the populace
Do you see the pattern?
This is ass backwards and should not be allowed. These fucking corporations will hide everything if this kind of stuff is passed.
This bill is supposed to persuade foreigners that the United States does not gather data on them, because they aren't included in the warrants.
Well, the NSA and the CIA and other like agencies don't need warrants to gather information abroad, so this law is just a fuzzy stuffed toy to provide false comfort.
What are the Germans going to think? "Oh, what a relief, I am secure knowing that the United States of America spies only on its own citizens."
This bill clarifies that an American corporation colluding in surveillance of foreigners does so with the latitude and secrecy of an intelligence agent.
Meanwhile, it affirms the US Government's power to ensure that the people are not secure from unreasonable searches.
The fourth amendment, and the rest of the bill of rights, lists things the government shall not do.
Separately, the enumerated powers clause lists what they are allowed to do, and says they may not do anything else oter than what is listed - all other powers are reserved to the states and the people, the Constitution says.
Nothing in the Bill of Rights or anywhere else in the Constitution gives the executive the right to perform searches, except that Congress has legislative power (limited to the enumerated powers) . It's Congress that grants the executive search power, by passing a law saying they can search _____ when _____. The fourth LIMITS that, saying Congress may not allow unreasonable searches. The Constitution does NOT say that all reasonable searches are allowed.
Encrypt everything you can, always, everywhere. Even bad encryption will slow the spies down and increase their costs.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
So any firm could hire one foreigner and put all materials in their files so that the entire workings of every company could be hidden. Be afraid! Be very afraid! The notion that any congressman could vote for such a trash bill makes me sick. They might as well stand before congress and call for a vote to be deliberately corrupt. We really need to lynch people these days and most of them are in important positions. This nonsense is treason and could bring down America.
to just say "F*k You!" to the U.S. Government?
The Constitution grants CONGRESS the power to coin regulate money, not the executive. The exact wording is "Congress shall have the power..." The executive has only those powers that Congress grants it, except for a very, very few granted directly by the Constitution.
> that the government had the power to make unreasonable ones before.
The Constitution is the founding document that CREATED the federal government. It didn't exist "before". Before the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, we had only a loose coalition of states, with the confederation itself having virtually no power - not even the power to tax.
The reciprocity comment is an interesting one. Since most countries respect sovereignty of other nations they have no need to pass a law to tell people that the law is only applicable in their own country. That just is.
So why make the comment? Is it a case of being able to say later: "We had good intentions but no other nation was willing to reciprocate so we dropped the law."?
As a side note, I wonder about the legalities of passing a law that affects an ongoing case. How does this work in the USA? Is the Government vs Microsoft case that is currently ongoing affected by the law if it is passed? If so why not do away with the judicial branch altogether? Why not just go straight to the politicians to have your problems solved, I mean you already vote for the judges.
The Constitution is only a few pages . You ca read it, rather than making wild guesses about what it says. So far, all your guesses are wrong. Article 2 section 2 enumerates the powers of the president. They are:
Make treaties
Appoint certain officers, subject to Senate approval
Serve as commander in chief of the armed forces
Sign or veto bills passe by Congress
There may be one more I'm not thinking of off the top of my head, but "run everything " is not in the list. 99% of what the president does is at the direction of Congress. The Constitution vests most authority in Congress. If you don't believe me, like I said you can easily read it for yourself. It's short enough that I had it memorized at one point in time.
Your logic sucks. It's so bad I'm going to declare you a troll, and a particularly shitty one because my aspy ass does not pick up on them quickly.
How is it possible that you can appoint all the officers (look up the Tail Hook scandal if you don't believe me), have the unilateral right to remove all the highest ranking officers, and not run things? Indeed, how stupid would the Founders have had to be to create an Executive Branch whose Chief Executive couldn't make Executive decisions?
In response to Tail Hook, Congress passed laws preventing commanders from overturning jury conviction for sexual assault, requiring a civilian review when commanders decline to prosecute, requiring dishonorable discharge or dismissal for those convicted, eliminating the statute of limitations for courts-martial in rape and sexual assault cases and criminalizing retaliation against victims who report an assault. The President did nothing. So who, exactly, demonstrated the power to do something about it?
Congress has the express power to control the scope of what the courts have authority over. So if it creates black letter law taking an area (what resides on foreign servers involving non-citizens) outside their scope then that isn't a violation of separation of powers.
The 4th is a guarantee to the people that they cannot be searched without warrants. It doesn't say courts can do whatever they want with warrants.
What I don't understand is how this situation is new. If a US Company has physical records, paper, CDs, whatever, and they are storing them across the border in Canada can they still be the subject of US warrant? If not, how is this different, if so, what's new?
In a sane system, data abroad would just be outside their jurisdiction. The court couldn't simply get a warrant for it, just like it couldn't order someone fetch a physical item from another country.
The President did nothing. That was the scandal.
The Congress had to step in and use their power of the purse, and their control of the nominations process, to force the president to act. Their power to force the President to take a fairly basic administrative action (investigate wrongdoing in his department) was so limited they had to hack their way around the problem by refusing to let any officer in the Navy be promoted (all military officers are confirmed by the Senate, and have to be confirmed again if they get promoted) until something changed.
Congress has power, but it's not the power to run things on a day-to-day basis. They can tell the DEA there is a law against heroin, and you have $X to enforce that law; but the people who actually enforce the law do so on the basis of Presidential orders.
Why doesn't the US simply follow currently established international law and work through Interpol? That is exactly why it was created. Oh, I forgot. Interpol requires evidence, probable cause and warrants (which does not really exist in the US legal system anymore).
You cna expect reciprocity from nations that don't have nuclear weapons. That would be Russia (hmmm, being very reciprocal at the moment, with their traditional single-finger wave), China (same wave, I see ; odd that), UK, France (waving a greasy dildo and a stale crusty baguette respectively, both begging you to come back again soon, but for different reasons). Oh, and don't forget Israel, India, Pakstan, DPRK, and imminently Iran.
America is really on a steep learning curve with this international relations thing. Enjoy!
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"