[bestbits] PRISM - is it about the territorial location of data or its legal ownership

[parminder]

Hi All

There was some demand on the bestbits list that we still need to ask a 
lot of questions from the involved companies in terms of the recent 
PRISM plus disclosures. We are being too soft on them. I refuse to 
believe that everything they did was forced upon on them. Apart from the 
fact that there are news reports 
<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-14/u-s-agencies-said-to-swap-data-with-thousands-of-firms.html> 
that US based tech companies regularly share data with US gov for 
different kinds of favours in return, or even simply motivated by 
nationalistic feeling, we should not forget that many of these companies 
have strong political agenda which are closely associated with that of 
the US gov.   You must all know about 'Google Ideas 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Ideas>', its revolving doors with 
US gov's security apparatus, and its own aggressive regime change ideas 
<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article34535.htm>. Facebook 
also is known to 'like' some things, say in MENA region, and not other 
things in the same region.....

Firstly, one would want to know whether the obligations to share data 
with US government extended only to such data that is actually located 
in, or flows, through, the US. Or, does it extend to all data within the 
legal control/ ownership of these companies wherever it may reside.  (I 
think, certainly hope, it must be the former, but still I want to be 
absolutely sure, and hear directly from these companies.)

Now, if the obligation was to share only such data that actually resided 
in servers inside the US, why did these companies, in face of what was 
obviously very broad and intrusive demands for sharing data about non US 
citizens, not simply locate much of such data outside the US. For 
instance, it could pick up the top 10 countries, the data of whose 
citizens was repeatedly sought by US authorities, and shift all their 
data to servers in other countries that made no such demand? Now, we 
know that many of the involved companies have set up near fictitious 
companies headquartered in strange places for the purpose of tax 
avoidance/ evasion. Why could they not do for the sake of protecting 
human rights, well, lets only say, the trust, of non US citizens/ 
consumers, what they so very efficiently did for enhancing their 
bottom-lines?

Are there any such plan even now? While I can understand that there can 
be some laws to force a company to hold the data of citizens of a 
country within its border, there isnt any law which can force these 
companies to hold foreign data within a country's borders... Or would 
any such act perceived to be too unfriendly an act by the US gov?


I am sure others may have other questions to ask these companies.....

parminder
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