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Supreme Court Wrestles With Microsoft Data Privacy Fight (reuters.com)
Supreme Court justices on Tuesday wrestled with Microsoft's dispute with the U.S. Justice Department over whether prosecutors can force technology companies to hand over data stored overseas, with some signaling support for the government and others urging Congress to pass a law to resolve the issue. From a report: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, both conservatives, hinted during an hour-long argument in the case at support for the Justice Department's stance that because Microsoft is based in the United States it was obligated to turn over data sought by prosecutors in a U.S. warrant. As the nine justices grappled with the technological complexities of email data storage, liberals Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor questioned whether the court needed to act in the data privacy case in light of Congress now considering bipartisan legislation that would resolve the legal issue. A ruling is due by the end of June.
You should assume the answer is "yes" no matter what the court says. If you have data, don't give it to a corporation in the cloud.
Microsoft owns that data, thus it is Microsoft property, and since Microsoft is an american citizen, it must adhere to American laws.
It's not complicated.
If the US basically tries to assert that their laws trump the national laws in which these US companies operate, then those US companies will pretty much lose business.
The only logical conclusion would be that MS is now effectively an agent of the US government, and the use of their cloud stuff would be illegal in other countries or for certain kinds of data.
AND, this would be reciprocal, as MS would have no choice but to hand over data on US citizens to those local governments.
Don't give me the bullshit answer that it's OK for the US but not for anybody else, because we don't give a fuck.
So good luck when Iran wants to subpoena US records from MS. This is basically setting up a scenario in which the US wants their laws to be extraterritorial, in which case everyone else gets to do it.
Sorry, America, but you can't have it both ways.
(Except for when there is a treaty of course.)
As that would put them legal jeopardy in the EU, and the EU "government" imposes actual fines, while the US government is staffed by employees aka lobbyists aka TV experts aka politicians from Microsoft. (Among others wo mostly agree.)
Don't worry though, Murica, as the corps are hard on guaranteeing this is the case in the EU too. So you will soon be number one again. All we need is a more catchy redneck name for the lands of just enough corporate oligarchy. How about 'Rope?
Consider the physical space, if a bank has headquarters in the USA would that mean the US government is entitled to access a safety deposit box in a foreign country?
If they are granted access then this is effectively the end of the use of US based tech companies for cloud services by a wide variety of industries (e.g. government, medical, legal). One also wonders whether the access would even be illegal in the foreign jurisdiction.
Most companies function in other countries as subsidies or foreign branches. Both for most legal cases act as an independent entity which is how Enron hid their losses from US audits and how many companies get out of paying tax. If this is yes, there is no reason the IRS could not ask/demand for a complete set of books in all countries and tax accordingly.
Likely they will have to reorganize at a further arms length with some sort of trust or functional representative owning the foreign entities. This is still possible, but it gets ridiculous quickly. The whole point is there is a legal understanding of 'entity' that limits the responsiveness of a corporation. Saying yes will blow it away with many consequences initially, but lawyers and even other countries will quickly construct a more separate entity. This is a stupid grasp by the government way outside established law and it becomes team america world police or the company with more effort still gets their separate entity protections.
We could be making tools that will quickly put an end to this waste of time "debating" bullshit. You won't prevent spying. So let's do the next best thing and make sure the state/corp never gets the advantage over the individual. If they spy on us, we are entitled to spy on them. This is the rule to enforce, without any stupid "debates", much less "wrestling".
Microsoft owns that data, thus it is Microsoft property, and since Microsoft is an american citizen, it must adhere to American laws.
Yes, but any American citizen in Europe must obey European laws. If you happen to be a holocaust denier and get arrested in Germany explaining about the US constitution's protections on free speech will get you nowhere.US companies have the choice not to go to Europe but, if they do, they must follow the law there. European law says that Microsoft cannot hand the data over to foreign (US) authorities. There is no law that the US Congress can pass that can relieve them of this responsibility and, if the US forces MS to hand over the data, it will make it close to impossible for US companies to do business in Europe since they will be unable to follow the law and so be liable for financial and possibly criminal penalties.
Shouldn't the so-called "conservative" judges be in favor of personal privacy, against governmental overreach, and pro-business? The definition of conservative seems to get twisted more and more every day.
Supreme Court justices on Tuesday wrestled with Microsoft's dispute with the U.S. Justice Department over whether prosecutors can force technology companies to hand over data stored overseas, with some signaling support for the government and others urging Congress to pass a law to resolve the issue.
Now just imagine the Chinese wants data from US citizens stored in the US? And yes Microsoft has a subsidiary in China. See the problem now?
From a second grader's knowledge of the division of the US government, why shouldn't this be a problem of congress?
That's Justice Alito, off the top rope! Oh, that had to have hurt! And is that... OH MY GOD IT'S JUSTICE GINSBURG WITH THE STEEL CHAIR! She smacks Alito clear out of the ring! In all my years as an announcer I have never before seen wrestling quite like this, ladies and gentlemen. This is just... savage.
Captcha: prejudge
If the Supreme Court rules that data follows the laws of the nation that it is in, then the EU's data protection laws and right to forget automatically apply to all data in the EU even if held by a US company. I doubt the court will consider that, but that is simply a matter of fact.
If the Supreme Court rules that data follows the laws of the nation of the holding company, then European-based companies in the US automatically follow those aforementioned EU laws. The fact that they're in the US would be incidental. The Supreme Court decision would override all State and Federal rights as they are the supreme arbiters.
There can be only one law on the subject, one rule, one criterion for whose laws matter.
I don't believe for a second that the majority of fans of either side have considered the ramifications. It is human nature to look at things in isolation, even though nothing exists in such a state. So, here's a chance. I'l like people to reply to me with a consequence they hate yet know must be faced if the decision went the way they wanted it to. The inevitable consequence of the dichotomies of an us-v-them political situation. From a systems standpoint rather than in isolation, is it a useful dichotomy? Is it a useful consequence, even if you hate it? There will always be one, but it useful?
If the consequences serve no useful purpose or are even harmful, then maybe the problem is not in who holds jurisdiction but why we're asking that particular question and not something else.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Is it truly absurd? Should an international corporation be allowed to hide evidence by moving it around? Should international corporations then be immune to the laws of all nations? How exactly do you prove where the data is stored in a cryptographically protected distributed file system? Your argument is extremely close to saying that that multinationals have a carte blanch to do whatever they want "in the cloud" without being subject to the laws of any jurisdiction.
Maybe a ready-made OwnCloud image ... done.
You can offer it to trusted friends and family too. Not everyone needs to be an expert
Big Internet companies should move into the ocean and declare complete independence from any country.
Yeah, the problem is that you want to give corporations the ability to evade laws by shifting data around. Haha, you can't have the evidence because I moved it elsewhere.
Even better, should microsoft be able to hide all data from all jurisdictions by cryprographically distributing it, so it isn't solely in one country? Do you really want to give companies that immunity?
First of all, international law presumes that national boundaries are sacrosanct. In fact it was a major change in international law when the U.S. (successfully) pressured the international community for even a limited exception to this.
From memory, so take this with a grain of salt. I believe it was during the dissolution of Yugoslavia, which created a devastating civil war. No one wanted to get involved (it actually should have been the EU, but they dithered and stalled endlessly). Finally the slaughter got so great that the U.S. got international agreement that if a nation "failed to prevent ethnic cleansing or genocide", other nations could intervene and not have that be an act of war or a breach of international law. And if it wasn't Yugoslavia it was Rwanda.
There is no exemption for civil matters.
As to whether Microsoft is an American citizen, are you sure? I don't know either, but companies routinely create independent corporate entities for international operations. It might not be "Microsoft" we are dealing with here, it might be "Microsoft Ireland", "Microsoft Italy", "Microsoft Europe", etc.
Next is the issue of the customer's citizenship. If the customer is a citizen of another country, that country might decide their citizen's rights pre-empt any rights or obligations of the corporation they are doing business with. In fact I believe the European Union takes exactly this position on the rights of their citizens.
Finally, you state that Microsoft "owns that data." Well they might. Or they might not. Have you read the EULA & TOS? Has anyone? In particular, did the citizen who's data is being demanded by law enforcement, did they read that EULA & TOS? This depends both on the actual wording of the TOS, and whether informed consent can be given if the citizen was not actually informed.
The conversation keeps revolving around where the company is located and where the server is located. No decision based on those criteria will ever be consistent. Perhaps it makes more sense to assign jurisdiction not based on where the data is held, or where the company headquarters resides, but based on where the individual resides. In that interpretation, the US government could get a warrant to obtain files on American citizens, but not on Irish citizens. This resolves some of the scenarios where someone says "Well, suppose [evil regime X] wants information on an American citizen, then should Microsoft provide it?" It also avoids confusion with applying European data privacy laws to American citizens whose data happens to be on a server in Europe. The case gets even more absurd as data moves around. If a US server has a backup in Europe, whose data privacy law would apply? Oooh, even crazier, what if we stripe the data 3 ways with some bits in America, some in Europe, and the parity bit in Asia? These kinds of problems go away when viewed in terms of residency.
We need a treaty to make this happen.
So one of the more interesting arguments is that the search and seizure only actually occurs when Microsoft US hands the actual data files over to the government not when they copy the data from where it is stored to a new storage location in the US.
Notice the thought process there, and the way it involves copying data. Now think about the implications for digital content licensing. I bet the entertainment industry would have a different opinion about this than the Justice Department.
Well, for example if MS Europe or Ireland HAD to do what US law says secretly, it is not longer a European entity. Then it would have to show its books - and what some call ultimate owners. In short if the US lawmakers decide yes, then all favorable tax shifting ends tomorrow. I foresee Europe declaring any 51% American anything data, illegal.
That's fine but it has to spark and evolve there, not adapt from richer climes.
Also 1/100th the atmosphere may be livable but is another monkey wrench the cold desert doesn't come close to duplicating.
Also this claim has been made for extremophiles before, notably antarctic lichen.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Why do we need to not only have it spy on us forcibly but also have an advertising ID so someone else can make money?
Fuck Microsoft
I think y'all are arguing about the wrong thing. The law in question already only applies to US data. The problem that is being grappled with is that the law can easily be circumvented by moving the data around to hide it. The flip side is that data that should be protected due to its being elsewhere can easily be brought to the US. The ease of those opposing problems was not contemplated at the time the law was passed in 1986.
Of course, the law itself was stupid even at the time, for example because it considered email to be "stored communication" and claimed that it was no longer just communication if it was stored for more than 180 days. Even in 1986, such a thing as backups existed.
Also, the current court seems to think that the problem at hand did not exist when the law was passed in 1986. That's ridiculous. FTP has existed since the 70s, and multinational companies like IBM with international networks could move data around internationally at will even before the "internet" existed (though probably not before arpanet existed, though arpanet would not have been used for it).
This is all part and parcel of the idiocy with net neutrality claiming that ISPs are not common carriers.
Your statement that "The Supreme Court is under no obligation to take other country's laws into consideration..." is correct as far as it goes.
However do you know what is always relevant? Jurisdiction. All courts have to consider jurisdiction at all times, and they have no business ruling on matters not in their jurisdiction. They also make findings of fact when a law attempts to assert jurisdiction in an area where it cannot do so.
Any US law which attempts to co-opt jurisdiction in a foreign country is an illegal law. Full stop. The US Supreme Court is fully within it's rights to make such a finding. In fact it is the obligation of the US Supreme Court to do so.