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Microsoft Email Privacy Case No Longer Needed, Says The US (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader quotes CNN:
The U.S. Department of Justice is asking the Supreme Court to abandon its case against Microsoft over international data privacy. A new law signed by President Donald Trump last week answers the legal question at the heart of Microsoft's case, the DOJ says. So the case "is now moot," the department said in a court filing posted Saturday.
Microsoft's legal battle began in 2013, when it refused to hand over emails stored on a server in Ireland to US officials who were investigating drug trafficking. Microsoft argued at the time that sharing data stored abroad could violate international treaties and policies, and there was no law on the books to provide any clarity. That changed with the The Cloud Act, which was tucked into the spending bill that Trump signed March 23. The act establishes a legal pathway for the United States to form agreements with other nations that make it easier for law enforcement to collect data stored on foreign soil... Microsoft cheered the new law, saying the Cloud Act provides the legal clarity the company sought.
The ACLU's legislative counsel argues that the new act hurts privacy and human rights, "at a time when human rights activists, dissidents and journalists around the world face unprecedented attacks."
"Would even a well-intentioned technology company, particularly a small one, have the expertise and resources to competently assess the risk that a foreign order may pose to a particular human rights activist?"
Microsoft's legal battle began in 2013, when it refused to hand over emails stored on a server in Ireland to US officials who were investigating drug trafficking. Microsoft argued at the time that sharing data stored abroad could violate international treaties and policies, and there was no law on the books to provide any clarity. That changed with the The Cloud Act, which was tucked into the spending bill that Trump signed March 23. The act establishes a legal pathway for the United States to form agreements with other nations that make it easier for law enforcement to collect data stored on foreign soil... Microsoft cheered the new law, saying the Cloud Act provides the legal clarity the company sought.
The ACLU's legislative counsel argues that the new act hurts privacy and human rights, "at a time when human rights activists, dissidents and journalists around the world face unprecedented attacks."
"Would even a well-intentioned technology company, particularly a small one, have the expertise and resources to competently assess the risk that a foreign order may pose to a particular human rights activist?"
If you think this is a left/right issue? I have some magic beans you might be interested in, or did you forget all the nasty shit Obama pushed through, the wiretapping, attacking whistleblowers, that the left cheered?
This is about those in power wanting more power PERIOD, the left has been taken over by SJWs that think you should be jailed for wrongthink, the right has been taken over by Neocons that think everyone is a potential terrorist...tomato tomatoe dude. Its why more and more of the actual classical liberals are going to the Green Party while the fiscal conservatives are going to the Libertarian Party, BOTH sides have become hopelessly corrupted so your "choices" today or Coke in a can VS Coke in a bottle, its not even Coke VS Pepsi anymore...surely you don't think Shillary actually gave a flying flipping fuck about curtailing power, did you?
What I see today only shows that Bill Hicks called it 25 years ago that its nothing but a puppet show, designed to keep the paupers arguing while the puppet masters laugh their asses off and take more and more for themselves.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.