[governance] FW: [IP] Obama administration says the world's servers are ours

Tue Jul 15 14:36:10 EDT 2014

From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne at warpspeed.com>

Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Obama administration says the world's servers are
ours

Date: July 14, 2014 at 3:47:28 PM EDT

To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net at warpspeed.com>

Reply-To: dewayne-net at warpspeed.com

Obama administration says the world's servers are ours
US says global reach needed to gut "fraudsters," "hackers," and "drug
dealers."
By David Kravets

Jul 14 2014

<http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/07/obama-administration-says-the-wo
rlds-servers-are-ours/>

Global governments, the tech sector, and scholars are closely following a
legal flap in which the US Justice Department claims that Microsoft must
hand over e-mail stored in Dublin, Ireland.

In essence, President Barack Obama's administration claims that any company
with operations in the United States must comply with valid warrants for
data, even if the content is stored overseas. It's a position Microsoft and
companies like Apple say is wrong, arguing that the enforcement of US law
stops at the border.

A magistrate judge has already sided with the government's position, ruling
in April that "the basic principle that an entity lawfully obligated to
produce information must do so regardless of the location of that
information." Microsoft appealed to a federal judge, and the case is set to
be heard on July 31.

In its briefs filed last week, the US government said that content stored
online doesn't enjoy the same type of Fourth Amendment protections as data
stored in the physical world. The government
<safari-reader://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/federalbrief
-microsoftcase.pdf> cited (PDF) the Stored Communications Act (SCA), a
President Ronald Reagan-era regulation:

Overseas records must be disclosed domestically when a valid subpoena,
order, or warrant compels their production. The disclosure of records under
such circumstances has never been considered tantamount to a physical search
under Fourth Amendment principles, and Microsoft is mistaken to argue that
the SCA provides for an overseas search here. As there is no overseas search
or seizure, Microsoft's reliance on principles of extra-territoriality and
comity falls wide of the mark.

Microsoft said the decision has wide-ranging, global implications. "Congress
has not authorized the issuance of warrants that reach outside US
territory," Microsoft's attorneys
<http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/microsoft-challenges-us-govt-war
rant-to-access-overseas-customer-data/> wrote. "The government cannot seek
and a court cannot issue a warrant allowing federal agents to break down the
doors of Microsoft's Dublin facility."

The Redmond, Washington-based company said its consumer trust is low in the
wake of the Edward Snowden revelations. It told the US judge presiding over
the case that "[t]he government's position in this case further erodes that
trust and will ultimately erode the leadership of US technologies in the
global market."

Companies like Apple, AT&T, Cisco, and Verizon agree. Verizon
<safari-reader://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/verizonamicu
s.pdf> said (PDF) that a decision favoring the US would produce "dramatic
conflict with foreign data protection laws." Apple and Cisco
<safari-reader://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/applebriefin
remicrosft.pdf> said (PDF) that the tech sector is put "at risk" of being
sanctioned by foreign governments and that the US should seek cooperation
with foreign nations via treaties, a position the US said is not practical.

The Justice Department said global jurisdiction is necessary in an age when
"electronic communications are used extensively by criminals of all types in
the United States and abroad, from fraudsters to hackers to drug dealers, in
furtherance of violations of US law."

The e-mail the US authorities are seeking from Microsoft concerns a
drug-trafficking investigation. Microsoft often stores e-mail on servers
closest to the account holder.

The senior counsel for the Irish Supreme Court wrote in a recent filing that
a US-Ireland "Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty" was the
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/r/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2014/06/10/Nationa
l-Security/Graphics/SDNY%20McDowell%20Declaration.pdf> "efficient" avenue
(PDF) for the US government to obtain the e-mail held on Microsoft's
external servers.

Orin Kerr, a Fourth Amendment expert at George Washington University,
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/microsoft-fights-us-s
earch-warrant-for-customer-e-mails-held-in-overseas-server/2014/06/10/6b8416
ae-f0a7-11e3-914c-1fbd0614e2d4_story.html> said, "The scope of the privacy
laws around the world is now a very important question, and this is the
beginning of what may be a lot of litigation on the question. So it's a big
case to watch."

 <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now> Archives
<https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/22720195-c2c7cbd3> |
<https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=22720195&id_secret=22720195-8fdd4
308> Modify Your Subscription |
<https://www.listbox.com/unsubscribe/?member_id=22720195&id_secret=22720195-
97c5b007&post_id=20140714160148:B4952B62-0B91-11E4-BC5E-F4360264DADE>
Unsubscribe Now 

 <http://www.listbox.com> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20140716/02e41e32/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t