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US Spending Bill Contains CLOUD Act, a Win For Tech and Law Enforcement (axios.com)
The 2,232 page spending bill released Wednesday by House and Senate leaders includes the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data [CLOUD] Act, which provides a legal framework for law enforcement to request data from overseas servers. The CLOUD Act currently sits high atop the wish list of tech firms, law enforcement and even foreign nations. Axios reports: The Supreme Court is currently mulling a case determining whether the Department of Justice had the right to force Microsoft to produce client emails stored on a server in Ireland without permission from Ireland's government. Microsoft fears the DOJ will force it to violate the laws of Ireland. The DOJ hopes to avoid the often years long process of abiding by treaties dealing with evidence. But both have publicly urged lawmakers to render the pending decision moot by passing the CLOUD act, a way to streamline the treaty process for requesting digital data.
The CLOUD Act provides a framework for reciprocal treaties for nations to request data from computers located within each other's borders. It also provides a mechanism for a Microsoft to take a law enforcement demand to court if it would force them to violate another country's rules. But when neither apply, law enforcement will be able to demand files in accordance with U.S. law.
The CLOUD Act provides a framework for reciprocal treaties for nations to request data from computers located within each other's borders. It also provides a mechanism for a Microsoft to take a law enforcement demand to court if it would force them to violate another country's rules. But when neither apply, law enforcement will be able to demand files in accordance with U.S. law.
This is one more reason to be extremely wary of international treaties à la CETA and TTIP.
And why again do you think your laws apply here?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Both the EFF (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/new-backdoor-around-fourth-amendment-cloud-act) and the ACLU (https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/consumer-privacy/proposed-cloud-act-would-let-bad-foreign-governments-demand) think the CLOUD act is a bad idea.
J'aime mieux les méchants que les imbéciles, parce qu'ils se reposent. -- Alexandre Dumas
This article seems quite positive about the CLOUD act.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has quite a different take: The CLOUD Act: A Dangerous Expansion of Police Snooping on Cross-Border Data.
Is /. written for the benefit of law enforcement and big tech business or for nerds?
How long until Congress only passes one law a year: the Must Pass Logrolled Omnibus Act of 20XX?
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
The Echelon program allowed unfettered exchange of security data among various partnered nations. The NSA could, and did, obtain US domestic monitoring by asking other nations for it, and they obtained domestic monitoring in their own nations which they were not allowed to gather directly by their own national laws or constitutions. Given the extent of wholesale monitoring on the backbones of the Internet, by both domestic and international agencies, it effectively eliminates the privacy protections within individual nations.
The monitoring is also wholesale. I just had a Belarus company interview me for their wholesale email monitoring tool, designed to extract email attachments from a server plugged into the local network, but not placed on the SMTP server or physically installed as a man-in-the-middle. It's just the sort of thing the NSA used in "Room 641A", their infamous tap on the AT&T fiber optic backbone of the west coast of the USA. They certainly haven't given up on the backbone taps, and they've done wholesale monitoring on the whole email traffic of the USA with the Carnivore program. (That program is still active: they just renamed it wien it became public.)
Hurrah for the Stasi!
Hurrah for the Stasi!
Hurrah for the Stasi!
Why is the CLOUD act part of a spending bill rather than a separate document? Are you unable to pass laws these days without threatening a government shutdown?
Maybe it's time the USA stopped exporting democracy and started importing it from those countries who haven't lost their way.
AC think of it as a question in the USA about having a bank account in Switzerland.
In the distant past that person in the USA under question could expect nothing to be shared.
Now they are not sure what the EU has handed over. What the US brand in the EU has given to US law enforcement.
What a EU brand in the EU had to hand over to US law enforcement due new laws.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I am having trouble understanding how this wouldnt be a poison pill for us companies. If this act is made into law and then used, would it not over time lead people in other countries to garner mis-trust in US Corporations?
This. The lesson here is that simply having your data stored overseas won't help you keep it private, the US will not respect foreign laws.
If you care about such things, you simply should not do business with a US company.
Threats and military force are the most VISIBLE use of a large military, but not at all the most common or most important to international relations. Ireland, spending 0.5% of its GDP on military, lacks even the most basic ability to defend itself. Ireland doesn't NEED to be able to defend itself because it can depend on its friend, the United States.
For comparison, Saudi Arabia spends 10% of GDP, the US 3.5%. The US doesn't need to threaten invasion, nations like Ireland know that they are 100% reliant on the US, UK, France, and Germany for their defense. The US has twice as much military power as the entire EU combined, so it's a really good idea to have the US on your side in case of any conflict.
That's the primary use of the US military - allowing countries like Ireland to be defended by the world's only $500 billion military while they spend only $500 million. They just have to be a good friend to the US.
If you care about such things, you simply should not do business with a US company.
I think what it actually means is if you care about such things you should not do business with any company which will store your data on servers in the US. There are US companies which will make sovereignty promises with where your data gets stored.
If you care about such things, you simply should not do business with a US company.
I think what it actually means is if you care about such things you should not do business with any company which will store your data on servers in the US. There are US companies which will make sovereignty promises with where your data gets stored.
I'm thinking you did not read the article.
Anything hailed by both law enforcement and big data means privacy just got the shaft
is like saying that cancer is a win for the medical industrial complex.
NHA
Is this meaningful? What force of law does a treaty framework coming from the legislative branch have? The executive branch is the one with the treaty power. The senate can either agree or disagree. Is this just advice to Trump that he can then follow at his discretion in negotiating new treaties?