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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."
"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
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.
Psst: constitutional ammendments never go to the president.
Some people encrypt by using rot-13 twice. I prefer the more secure method of using rot-1 a total of twenty six times.
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?
And this is one of the reasons we are moving to Microsoft for our email and file storage. I have no idea why the 4th amendment only applies to Microsoft, not to Google, but so be it.
Of course according to Trump, aliens are not people. I wonder whether he can find a corrupt judge to support that argument.
Nearly impossible
That's a feature, not a bug.
Well, they both have in common that they are American companies. It would be more reliable to have your mail handled by a Russian server, the Russians are probably not going to cooperate with the FBI. They might snoop themselves of course, but the Russians don't care if I pirate American movies or oder pot.
This exists ( https://www.state.gov/document... ). A sizeable volume of requests are processed every year. However, some US judges don't want to use the official channels, I suspect because they are egotistical enough to think that their writ applies outside US territory. I don't mean to knock Americans, this is just human nature. An Irish policeman recently was recently in the papers for cooperation with the FBI to get Facebook to do something that could have been done much quicker by just asking the company's Irish branch office.
Darren Bane
And this is one of the reasons we are moving to Microsoft for our email and file storage. I have no idea why the 4th amendment only applies to Microsoft, not to Google, but so be it.
If you're worried about the government reading your emails, why risk using a USA company at all? Use a company that has no USA presence at all. Or better, roll your own offshore and control your own encryption keys.
Of course according to Trump, aliens are not people. I wonder whether he can find a corrupt judge to support that argument.
He's right there... aliens aren't always people, sometimes they are lizards, sometimes they are amorphous blobs
I would suggest Microsoft Corporation has a "Working Business Relationship" with the US Government, that grants them more leeway in such matters.
Your suggestion presumes that the "US Government" is a monolithic entity, which it's not. Even the judiciary isn't completely in sync with itself.
Is it basically the Google store your emails anywhere - might be in the US, might not, might move around?
In the Microsoft case, wasn't it Microsoft Ireland, an Irish registered subsiduary, holding the data in an Irish datacentre (and only an Irish datacentre)? To comply with the court order, Microsoft Ireland would have had to break Irish/EU data protection laws.
At least, that's my understanding of the difference.
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.