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Google, Unlike Microsoft, Must Turn Over Foreign Emails, Rules Judge (fortune.com)
Every year Google receives more than 25,000 requests from U.S. authorities for "disclosures of user data in criminal matters," according to a U.S. judge's recent ruling. But this one is different. An anonymous reader quotes Reuters:
A U.S. judge has ordered Google to comply with search warrants seeking customer emails stored outside the U.S., diverging from a federal appeals court that reached the opposite conclusion in a similar case involving Microsoft. U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Rueter in Philadelphia ruled on Friday that transferring emails from a foreign server so FBI agents could review them locally as part of a domestic fraud probe did not qualify as a seizure...because there was "no meaningful interference" with the account holder's "possessory interest" in the data sought.
"Though the retrieval of the electronic data by Google from its multiple data centers abroad has the potential for an invasion of privacy, the actual infringement of privacy occurs at the time of disclosure in the United States," Rueter wrote... The ruling came less than seven months after the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said Microsoft could not be forced to turn over emails stored on a server in Dublin, Ireland that U.S. investigators sought in a narcotics case.
Google announced they'd appeal the case, saying "We will continue to push back on overbroad warrants."
"Though the retrieval of the electronic data by Google from its multiple data centers abroad has the potential for an invasion of privacy, the actual infringement of privacy occurs at the time of disclosure in the United States," Rueter wrote... The ruling came less than seven months after the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said Microsoft could not be forced to turn over emails stored on a server in Dublin, Ireland that U.S. investigators sought in a narcotics case.
Google announced they'd appeal the case, saying "We will continue to push back on overbroad warrants."
The 4th is outdated. Founder meant your home, not offsite.
"no meaningful interference with the account holder's possessory interest" WTF?
I'll just leave this here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyV_UG60dD4
What is the difference between Microsoft and Google?
Apparently Microsoft sells information to secret U.S. government agencies. One story: Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages.
It doesn't matter, apparently, what a judge rules. It's being done anyway.
The only good and somewhat permanent solution to this would be for Google, Microsoft, etc to encrypt the e-mails end-to-end and in storage as well, so that nobody, not even them, can see what they contain. Unfortunately, doing so would remove their ability to data mine and monetize the contents of the e-mails and so they will never do this. Hence the ultimate answer will come from another direction, someone who takes over their roles as major e-mail providers but is not interested in mining the contents of the e-mails. This likely will have to be some form of non-profit entity or at least a non-free e-mail service.
So the judge is compelling them to be complicit in commiting a crime? It would be interesting to see if the judge's immunity holds in that circumstance.
If it's on a foreign server, that pretty much sums it up right there.
I wonder what happens if an E.U. court finds that the data transfer of personal data from an E.U. located server to the U.S. without E.U. judicary oversight is illegal. That was one of the arguments in the Microsoft case. If the U.S. judge then orders Google to ignore the E.U. court, he could be held in contempt of the E.U. court and face punitive measures.
Fucking samosas eating chimp.
That appears to mean that the person who used gmail lives in the US, and Google just randomly decided to store part of it in Ireland.
Since data stored in the cloud isn't *really* yours anymore, you disclosed the contents of the message to a 3rd party in the US. I can see why the Magistrate ruled the way he did.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
#53806703, seek help at once.
If you are using email from an advertising or datamining company such as google, yahoo, facebook, or whoever else, you have given up all pretence of caring about the privacy of your message. The entire business model of these companies is built around reading your emails behind your back.
There are ways to use email privately. That is not one of the ways. Stop using those services, and start refusing to email people who use them.
That's some twisted logic that to "seize" something it must not be available to the owner any longer.
Rulings like this will KILL US cloud providers. trying to sell services outside the US.
judges are people and have thier opinions but there is also political climate.
dont want to leave any one fealing left out.
If retrieving a copy of an email while leaving the original intact creates "no meaningful interference" with the account holder's "possessory interest" of that email, how long before this ruling is used as a defence against the RIAA and MPAA's copyright infringement efforts?
Since making a copy of a movie does not create a meaningful interference with the account holder's possessory interest of the movie, surely it can't be worth all those lawsuits?
Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice!
I don't know if there is such a thing as 'data extradition', but surely working with Ireland would be the best approach? Anything else should surely outside of the immediate jurisdiction of US law enforcement? Maybe Google should invesigate the flip question: would the US accept e-mails on a foreign national stored on a US server to be handed over without the necessary legal paper work?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
This kind of thing needs to happen a few times so people will have reason to collectively take their heads out of their asses when it comes to trusting the privacy of their own data in "the cloud."
gmail is no longer worth dealing with yanks
ty for da fish, google
The ruling implies that as long as you can separate something illegal in enough small steps, it becomes legal.
Swinging my arms is not illegal.
Holding a hammer is not ilegal.
Crystal structure breakdown is not illegal.
Lifting and lowering my feet is not illegal.
Extending my arms and closing my fingers is not illegal.
Lifting and lowering my feet is not illegal.
So, sure, you TV is now in my home, somehow, but I no point did I break into your home and take it, see?
Based upon the theory set forth by U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Rueter, I downloaded the entire Disney movie collection. That of course is not stealing because "no meaningful interference" with Disney's "possessory interest". That is to say, I didn't steal their movies, I simply copied them.
It's not hard to tell you're a foreign-language speaker... let me guess; Hindi?
"the actual infringement of privacy occurs at the time of disclosure in the United States"
Maybe, but the conspiracy, aiding and abetting occur earlier.
No, in that case, the US government wanted to investigate what happened in Ireland. In this, case they are investigating what happened in the USA, where they do have jurisdiction and evidence shouldn't be lost because a third party threw it across an international border.
To be fair, television has been putting this argument into cop shows for the last 25 years, maybe longer. In Tv. land, a cop can bully, blackmail or shame hidden records out of any party with a tangential connection to the crime. I'm surprised it took US courts this long to imitate it.
Since "no meaningful interference" is the new standard, there'll be no complaints when Snowdon and Manning use the same argument to excuse their behaviour. This is a shitty argument giving more power to the police instead of addressing the real problem, obstruction of a criminal investigation.
Corporations need to ensure that their data is held by legal subsidiaries that can only be hit with a warrant by their own country's courts and which have no ability to access data controlled by another legal subsidiary. Whilst not trivial, it is surely possible for the relevant security keys to be strictly under the control of the relevant county's board of directors. That board of directors would be protected by the courts of its domicile - though I guess members may end up being unable to travel to the US if they resist a US warrant. But then sometimes the empire must be resisted...
Protonmail is a foreign and heavily encrypted Swiss email service that uses two passwords, one for account and the other for the mailbox itself. They don't store the passwords or anything else to decrypt emails, or at least the mailboxes. For man in the middle, I have no idea. But any way, if Micro$oft doesn't have to disclose like Google does, know that Protonmail uses Azure, which is M$ owned. They have it for all desktops and smart phones, or you can just log with a web browser that supports JS.
Twitter dropped API keys for government spy programs a few months back because of Muslim witch hunts. However, they just partnered with Google to help them build parts of their software. Funny how Google didn't get exempt but Micro$oft, the platform that a whole bunch of our government decided to use for some reason, does. Wonder why (sarcasm) ? Duh. And now they will go after Twitter next since Google lost and is working with them. Revenge for saying no. Just something to be aware of.
That's why you always choose a zero knowledge provider. Someone that provides you a service but doesn't have access to read the content.
I'm pretty happy with ProtonMail in that area. They are not only located in Switzerland, with much stronger privacy laws, but also, they encrypt end-to-end, and therefore, have no access to the content. Mail between users in ProtonMail are automatically encrypted, while mail to someone outside the system can be sent as a URL the receiver has to have a password to access (and can be time-deleted).
Of course, it's not Google Inbox in terms of features, but it gets the job done. You can always do full PGP with any service, but you have to know what you are doing.
Until things get insanely simple, in this day and age, you've got to learn, and do what you can for your right to privacy.
According to this contempt of court exists in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, England and Wales, and the United States. Contempt of court may not be an issue here at all. There are other issues, obviously, but it's likely those will be handled in different ways.
I think this judge is sort of missing the point of why people fight against having their personal data seized. It's not that we don't have access to the seized data, it's that other parties have access to something that I want kept private.
I'd like to see this same argument used when I demand a bunch of classified documents from the government:
"No, no, it's OK, I just want a COPY of the classified stuff. You guys will still have your 'possessory interest'"