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Microsoft Can't Shield User Data From Government, Says Government (bloomberg.com)
Microsoft is now arguing in court that their customers have a right to know when the government is reading their e-mail. But "The U.S. said federal law allows it to obtain electronic communications without a warrant or without disclosure of a specific warrant if it would endanger an individual or an investigation," according to Bloomberg. An anonymous reader quotes their report:
The software giant's lawsuit alleging that customers have a constitutional right to know if the government has searched or seized their property should be thrown out, the government said in a court filing... The U.S. says there's no legal basis for the government to be required to tell Microsoft customers when it intercepts their e-mail... The Justice Department's reply Friday underscores the government's willingness to fight back against tech companies it sees obstructing national security and law enforcement investigations...
Secrecy orders on government warrants for access to private e-mail accounts generally prohibit Microsoft from telling customers about the requests for lengthy or even unlimited periods, the company said when it sued. At the time, federal courts had issued almost 2,600 secrecy orders to Microsoft alone, and more than two-thirds had no fixed end date, cases the company can never tell customers about, even after an investigation is completed.
Secrecy orders on government warrants for access to private e-mail accounts generally prohibit Microsoft from telling customers about the requests for lengthy or even unlimited periods, the company said when it sued. At the time, federal courts had issued almost 2,600 secrecy orders to Microsoft alone, and more than two-thirds had no fixed end date, cases the company can never tell customers about, even after an investigation is completed.
I'm pretty sure the government in going into the direction of using only secrecy orders ALL THE TIME. Easier, no complain, no report, no end date... why using the "normal" process anyway?
Not really the problem, which is the legal basis of forbidding Microsoft from telling their customers that their email has been intercepted by a third party despite what agreements were in place between Microsoft and their customers.
Windows 10 "telimetry" data is everything from a browser history monitor to a keylogger. You couldnt get more dystopian if you ate a copy of 1984. The government knows it doesnt need to go far for data from windows users....those pesky Linux kids though....
Good people go to bed earlier.
Microsoft is not in this case making any argument about shielding data from the government. This isn't a challenge to NSL's, overbroad warrants, the business records doctrine, or any other tool the government uses to access data. This shields nothing.
This is about notifying the user AFTER the data has been accessed. The government argues even that shouldn't be allowed.
It sounds to me like you are suggesting strict gun controls do not eliminate violent and or gun related crime. Perhaps you missed his subtle intent.
Eliminate? No. But reduce heavily yes. Strict gun control laws do work. Compare any and all countries who have strict gun control laws to America. Who has more gun violence?
The implication that I understood was: RUN your own Mail Server and Domain. Don't use Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, etc. If you are in control, you will be notified (and the Feds probably won't notice that they sent the paperwork to the target).
Germany's per capita firearms related death rate is about 10% that of the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Why doesn't someone sue the government over this? They are circumventing Constitutional rights with this type of behavior but until it gets before the SCOTUS nothing will change.
Probably because the people whose rights are being violated, don't have any specific knowledge that their rights have been violated. The people who know other peoples' rights are being violated (Microsoft in this example) aren't having their own rights violated. Thus, nobody has standing to sue.
Sounds like Microsoft needs to start sending weekly messages to people letting them know that their data haven't been accessed by the government.
The problem comes down to a lack of standing.... unless you can be shown to be impacted by a specific action, you lack standing to sue. Since the orders are secret, no one who has tried to bring suit can be demonstrably shown to have standing, so the cases get thrown out. It's a clear demonstration of why secret orders like this make a mockery of our legal system.
"The U.S. says there's no legal basis for the government to be required to tell Microsoft customers when it intercepts their e-mail"
Based on legal interpretations of the constitution you MIGHT have some bases when the targets are foreign citizens (even though the constitution doesn't mention a difference between citizen/non-citizen right most of the time) but the Fourth amendment pretty clearly intends for citizens to be notified when the government was snooping through their things (via a warrant). The governments constant game of slight of hand to try to detract from that obvious intent doesn't change it ("electronic communications", "third party disclosure", "standing", etc). It's disturbing that they can even keep a straight face when arguing that warrantless searches, permanent gag orders and blanket warrants aren't antithetical to the constitution itself, the "legal basis" for all law in the United States of America.
https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/att/generalwarrantsmemo.pdf
The US Constitution is one of limited government and enumerated powers. I don't see a constitutional basis for the government to tell companies what they can and cannot tell their customers; which of the enumerated powers is that supposed to be?
So, while customers don't necessarily "have a constitutional right to know if the government has searched or seized their property", the government certainly has no constitutional right to prohibit companies from telling customers anything they want.
If you're willing to possibly have your world view shattered actually sit down and research this
If you're willing to sit down and research gun violence, you won't be able to, because Congress, as a result of NRA lobbying and campaign contributions, prohibited government agencies from doing well-designed research into gun violence.
That's because the studies started to show More guns=more killings.
The study that aroused the NRA's ire and got research cut from the federal budget was a study in the New England Journal of Medicine which compared gun licenses with death certificates. It turned out that people who got gun licenses were more likely to commit suicide than die by other causes. More guns=more suicide.
Our legislators responded by removing gun licenses and cause of death from the public record, so that even legitimate medical researchers couldn't do any more studies like that.
there's absolutely no evidence that gun laws have an effect on gun violence rates.
Assuming ad argumentum that's true, it's because there's almost no evidence on gun laws and violence -- because the NRA stopped all government research. No research=no evidence.
The relevant figure to compare would seem to be intentional unjustified gun-related homicides. Can you find that? Or does that not support your worldview?
Way to ignore suicides, accidents, children accessing guns in the home and all the other bad things that happen that wouldn't happen in people didn't have guns laying around. I'm sure your motives are pure.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
I wouldn't draw that conclusion.
Americans are probably more likely to shoot someone with a gun when they have one but I would be hesitant to estimate how much more likely.
I would think it's mostly because of Germany's restrictions on the types of guns you can get and the laws around carrying them.
The US has more guns than people and (from personal anecdotes) gun owners typically own more than one gun. From what I've seen in Germany people who do own guns also own more than one. I know people in Germany who own a few different rifles and shotguns depending on what they're hunting. In the US it's that plus semi-auto rifles and handguns.
This is the very reason. For some reason my safety deposit box is protected from this crap, but if my documents are digital and are stored in the cloud equivalent then all my rights go away?
SCOTUS somehow found a bunch of exceptions in this sentence:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.".
Not sure what language they are using for their interpretation but it must not be English.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
If you're willing to sit down and research gun violence, you won't be able to, because Congress, as a result of NRA lobbying and campaign contributions, prohibited government agencies from doing well-designed research into gun violence
This is a lie, you're parroting propaganda that is not rooted in fact. Most likely, you were referencing back when the CDC was punished for lobbying congress with a political agenda promoting gun control - something that is illegal for the CDC to do as they are not a partisan political entity. They were punished because they were caught breaking the law. The budget money they lost was returned a few months later, however. The CDC is not brred from reporting on anything at all, they are barred from lobbying congress with any specific agenda.
Are you suggesting that black people are just more violent than non-blacks?
Once study that I linked above
http://www.amjmed.com/article/...
states that while non-lethal crimes are similar across developed countries, firearms related deaths are much higher in the US.
The list of per capita firearms related deaths also shows that while France which has a very large black population (albiet lower than that of the US) it doesn't have a per capita firearms death rate any where near that of the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You also seem to be ignoring the large poor immigrant populations in many developed countries who do not seem to be shooting people at rates anywhere close to the US.
And this is the crux of the impasse.
You will hold your position despite any evidence that can be brought up.
I will stay right here and hope that reason can persuade future generations of the folly of your dogma.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/1...
Mortality among Recent Purchasers of Handguns
Garen J. Wintemute, M.D., M.P.H., Carrie A. Parham, M.S., James Jay Beaumont, Ph.D., Mona Wright, M.P.H., and Christiana Drake, Ph.D.
N Engl J Med 1999; 341:1583-1589
November 18, 1999
DOI: 10.1056/NEJM199911183412106
Background
There continues to be considerable controversy over whether ownership of a handgun increases or decreases the risk of violent death.
Methods
We conducted a population-based cohort study to compare mortality among 238,292 persons who purchased a handgun in California in 1991 with that in the general adult population of the state. The observation period began with the date of handgun purchase (15 days after the purchase application) and ended on December 31, 1996. The standardized mortality ratio (the ratio of the number of deaths observed among handgun purchasers to the number expected on the basis of age- and sex-specific rates among adults in California) was the principal outcome measure.
Results
In the first year after the purchase of a handgun, suicide was the leading cause of death among handgun purchasers, accounting for 24.5 percent of all deaths and 51.9 percent of deaths among women 21 to 44 years old. The increased risk of suicide by any method among handgun purchasers (standardized mortality ratio, 4.31) was attributable entirely to an excess risk of suicide with a firearm (standardized mortality ratio, 7.12). In the first week after the purchase of a handgun, the rate of suicide by means of firearms among purchasers (644 per 100,000 person-years) was 57 times as high as the adjusted rate in the general population. Mortality from all causes during the first year after the purchase of a handgun was greater than expected for women (standardized mortality ratio, 1.09), and the entire increase was attributable to the excess number of suicides by means of a firearm. As compared with the general population, handgun purchasers remained at increased risk for suicide by firearm over the study period of up to six years, and the excess risk among women in this cohort (standardized mortality ratio, 15.50) remained greater than that among men (standardized mortality ratio, 3.23). The risk of death by homicide with a firearm was elevated among women (standardized mortality ratio at one year, 2.20; at six years, 2.01) but low among men (standardized mortality ratio at one year, 0.84; at six years, 0.79).
Conclusions
The purchase of a handgun is associated with a substantial increase in the risk of suicide by firearm and by any method. The increase in the risk of suicide by firearm is apparent within a week after the purchase of a handgun and persists for at least six years.
I think there are two main reasons to agree with Microsoft. In legal terms, there is long established case law that Fourth Amendment protections apply equally to renters as well as property owners. Microsoft is in the same position with respect to on-line assets as a landlord is to physical property. The landlord has to respect the tenant's privacy.
In terms of public expectations, I have discussed the issue of technical privacy concerns with non-technical people on many occasions and they expect the software vendors, on-line providers and other experts to protect them. That includes Microsoft. There is a popular belief among technical people that ordinary people must not care about their privacy because they do nothing to protect it. However, when I have pressed ordinary people to explain why they don't protect their own privacy, it boils down to two things. First, they don't know how to do id and presume any technical measure they take on their own behalf is likely to fail. Also, they presume that the experts have reviewed license agreements and privacy policies and won't let anything too outrageous stand for long. Second, many people are afraid that any (probably ineffective) measure they take to protect their own privacy is only likely to draw attention to them as someone who has something to hide. So, according to what I see, the consensus is that experts should be the ones to protect privacy and these protection measures should apply to everyone by default.
I didn't say civilized. That's far to loaded and subjective a term.
I said developed. That's far less subjective since the CIA has a list of those countries taken from the OECD.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
> Suicides shouldn't be counted because banning guns would in no way diminish somebody's desire to kill themselves.
Guns make is vastly more likely they will succeed.
>Children accessing guns in the home would be an accident.
No, that would be criminal negligence, which seems to be all too common.
>All the other bad things that happen indicates that you can't actually think of anything else.
So your sentence is effectively,
No. The first two things were sufficient to make my point.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
"We have always been a fiercely free country"
Unless you were... .. I'm sure I left a few from the list
Black before 1860
A woman before 1960
Have Japanese ancestry 1941-45
Have Chinese ancestry before 1900s
Were a native American
Black after 1960
Perceived as being a Communist in the 1950's
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
LMOL yeah ok Potsy. You're forgetting the fact that email is routed and that ISPs and all nodes in between have copies.
This is true if all studies are equal.
But some studies are peer reviewed and required to cite verifiable sources. Some studies are put out by organizations which are have a vested interest in one outcome or an other.
The later group includes plenty of studies which go in both directions. But the former group overwhelmingly shows that laxer gun control policy leads to a proliferation of guns and this in turn leads to more deaths by firearms.
Show me the data that says that removing the top 10 cities puts the US homicide rate or the homicide by firearms rate comparable to other nations. I will take the time to read those studies and, if they're well designed, I'll update my opinion based on that data.
That is exactly how I changed my position from being against gun control to being in favor of it and if new evidence suggest that this was a mistake I'll change my position again.
...which prevents us from making reasonable changes.
There is also a segment of the population for which the actions constituting "reasonable changes" can not be honestly applied to the phrase "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.". There is just not a lot of wiggle room in how that amendment is written.
I haven't read all of your posts...I was only responding to this tread. My point is mainly that there is no middle ground because of the dogma of both the pro and anti-gun groups. As a former NRA member (many years ago), I left them because I saw the extremist views of some "pry my cold dead fingers" types. Yet on the other side, we have many who will make claims about guns that when they couldn't tell the difference between a automatic and a semi, yet want to ban things they know nothing about.
For what it's worth, I'm all for background checks...no loopholes, as well as some other rules. I'd even consider mandatory training...I had to attend a multi-week class to go deer hunting as a teen, and that seems reasonable to me in order to learn gun safety.
We don't seem to be willing to address the mentally ill in this country, and I'm going to lump in drug addicts and alcoholics...none of whom in my opinion should have weapons, if they've been found legally incompetent, or convicted.
I know plenty of gun owners who would be willing to accept some additional limitations, but see the constant erosion through the trickle of new laws (vs. the actual enforcement of those already in place) as a signal that the other side is lying when they're only interested in "common sense" changes. "Common sense" has become code for confiscation to many because of this.
So, when you said dogma, I reacted...not to you so much as the fact that it seems like we've become very polarized on this and many other issues as a nation, and incapable of open discussion without name calling and bluster. As you can see someone marked my post off-topic...I wouldn't expect anything less.
Just another day in Paradise
I agree.
The numbers suggest that if we are to allocate resources to decrease deaths, heart disease should be our priority, all other things being equal.
However that does not invalidate the claim that increase gun control would likely lead to a statistically significant decrease in deaths.
The huge crux is that there are people that believe a person should be free to do anything they want as long as it doesn't infringe on another. And there are other people that believe in totalitarian control and people only being allowed to do things approved by government bureaucracy.
Whose business is it whether a given individual keeps a shotgun under the bed or a handgun in the dresser or a rifle in the back of the closet? Some believe it is their business because of what you MIGHT do with firearms. Others believe it is only your actions that become subject to legal limitation and not what you MIGHT be able to do if you were a nut job.
NRRPT/RCT