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Microsoft: Feds Are 'Rewriting' the Law To Obtain Emails Overseas
An anonymous reader writes: The Electronic Communications Privacy Act was written in 1986. It's incredibly outdated, yet it still governs many internet-related rights for U.S. citizens. Microsoft has now challenged Congress to update the legislation for how online communications work in 2015. The company is currently embroiled in a legal battle with the government over a court order to release emails stored in a foreign country to U.S. authorities. In a new legal brief (PDF), Microsoft says, "For an argument that purports to rest on the 'explicit text of the statute,' the Government rewrites an awful lot of it. Congress never intended to reach, nor even anticipated, private communications stored in a foreign country when it enacted [the ECPA]." In an accompanying blog post, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith wrote, "Until U.S. law is rewritten, we believe that the court in our case should honor well-established precedents that limit the government's reach from extending beyond U.S. borders. ... To the contrary, it is clear Congress's intent was to ensure that your digital information is afforded the same legal protections as your physical documents and correspondence, a principle we at Microsoft believe should be preserved."
Once upon a time, we expected our intelligence agencies to spy overseas but leave our local privacy alone.
Now, spy agencies tap every domestic communications channel, but apparently spying overseas is bad.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
It's funny when Google, Apple or Microsoft complain about privacy issues.
Maybe that should tell you something about how overweening the US government has become...
Would the US tolerate a foreign company operating in the US doing what complies with its home country laws but that violates US laws? I doubt it.
The feds cant use a warrant obtained in the USA to require a US based company to hand over physical documents stored in a foreign company, why should they be able to do it for electronic documents?
If the feds REALLY need this data so badly, why dont they just go to Ireland or wherever the data is being held and get a warrant from there?
You're a US based corporation, subject to US law,
Are you certain? Isn't it possible that Microsoft Ireland is a separate corporate entity from Microsoft USA?
Have gnu, will travel.
You can change your law no matter what, your laws don't extend beyond your own borders.. US laws are not valid in say United kingdom or sweden..
Film at 11. This will really hurt MS's credibility overseas, what little it has. It will drive people to move off Hotmail, Live, and God forbid their Microsoft Account (which is used to login to Windows machines now!!! Can you imagine if BUSH were doing this? I can't stand either Bush or Obama in this area so you partisan hacks know that up front. Only hope is Rand Paul or Ted Cruz at this point (unless you know of others?? I'm seriously open to anyone right now, please respond!). Gay marriage, universal healthcare, yadda yadda.. etc..all are trivial compared to this issue of humongous government that is treating us like subjects not like their bosses.
Indeed. ACA employer mandate causing politically inconvenient layoffs in election years? Punt that down the road. Three times. Yay! ACA Cadillac plan excise tax giving your union constituents heartburn? Punt that one to 2018. Yay! Immigration laws angering your constituents? Ignore/rewrite that stuff. Yay! Medicare Advantage cuts have the AARP up in arms? Pencil whip that one out of existence. Yay!
NSA playing fast and loose with your papers and effects? (selective) OUTRAGE! (selective) OUTRAGE!
A government powerful enough to deliver all the social justice you demand is powerful enough to exercise its own prerogatives.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Privacy? None of the companies care about privacy. But they care about losing business. And that's something that can happen very easily if the US can simply say "fork it over" when it comes to data stored in their data centers abroad.
The insecurity is already bad enough for their business, and if your congresscritters don't act quickly and decide against it, US companies will be an absolute no-go for data storage for companies in Europe and even more so in the middle east. Knowing that the US government could at a whim decide that they want to have all your email traffic means that companies will decide against US companies when it comes to storing their data. Simply out of self interest.
And in the current climate, being able to say that no US company gets a hold of your precious data is also good PR.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And your branch is doing business in Ireland which means it's subject to Irish law, which says that if you hand over those documents you're breaking it.
So, MS, you may decide now which law you wish to break.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So how is it then when "Target Canada" or other such companies go bankrupt, that "Target USA" isn't liable for all the debts they left behind?