from the be-a-shame-if-anything-should-happen-to-it dept.
link: Wired - Tech Giants Rally Around Microsoft to Protect "Your" Data Overseas
At issue is the government’s claim that a warrant obtained from a U.S. court under the authority of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act is sufficient to force Microsoft to hand over data stored on a server in Ireland. Microsoft insists the warrant is illegal and has no authority outside the U.S. After a district court rejected that argument in July, the company appealed.
Today multiple groups (.pdf), including 28 technology and media companies, 23 trade and civil liberties groups and 35 computer scientists put their names to 10 amicus briefs filed in support of Microsoft. The companies include Verizon, Apple, Amazon, Cisco, Salesforce, HP, eBay, Infor, AT&T, and Rackspace.
“[W]e have submitted this brief in order to turn back an unlawful overreach by the U.S. government,” Verizon wrote in its reason for filing the brief. “The U.S. Supreme Court has reiterated many times that U.S. statutes are presumed not to have extraterritorial application unless Congress ‘clearly expressed’ its ‘affirmative intention’ to the contrary.”
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(Score: 1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday December 16 2014, @02:55PM
Just more lies and crocodile tears from all of those greedy bastards who are not only in bed with the U.S. Government, but act as arms of the U.S. Government like the fascist fucks they are. And no, Apple doesn't get a free pass for pretending to respect user privacy as well.
If the U.S. government wants that data, it's getting that data, even if it hasn't the means to decrypt it. Those corporations get far too much in cash and other perks from their masters to mount any credible threat against their overlords.
Fuck 'em.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Tuesday December 16 2014, @05:16PM
Yeah, I have to agree. The US government will get the data whether this goes through or not; they probably already have it. This decision just covers the public perception of Microsoft.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 16 2014, @02:59PM
These companies want the benefits of being multinationals without the responsibilities. If they don't want domestic laws to apply to their foreign branches, don't have foreign branches.
Huge multinationals don't benefit the local populations either, they kill competition and innovation. I'd rather see every country have their own local companies providing such services than 3-4 global behemoths beholden to non-local interests and doing cookie-cutter implementations everywhere. After all, isn't that one of the benefits of the net? As a customer I can use the services of a company in Germany if I don't like the domestic options, but if it is the same damn company everywhere then I don't have a choice.
(Score: 2) by Blackmoore on Tuesday December 16 2014, @03:09PM
While i question the argument; Microsoft is right in that the US Government shouldn't have carte blanch over data and storage that is outside the US.
IF there is a legal proceeding against the company in question; then that companies PRIVATE systems should be open to the specific investigation; to the specific investigators. Anything outside of that is an unwarranted search and seizure.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 16 2014, @03:46PM
If I'm an accountant, and I bury some incriminating client documents in Mexico, could the police force me to turn them over if they start investigating that client? Or would their hands be tied until they can get the Mexican police to demand I turn over the documents as well?
I bet dodgy businessmen are salivating over the possibility of simply being able to store client documents on servers in select countries, and thereby becoming effectively immune to legal discovery.
(Score: 2) by mtrycz on Tuesday December 16 2014, @04:06PM
The info'd still pass though domestic routers, so...
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Monday December 29 2014, @05:50PM
Unwarranted search and seizure only applies to full US citizens. It doesn't apply to foreigners, residents or anyone deemed an "enemy combatant".
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by Blackmoore on Monday December 29 2014, @09:20PM
*sigh*
and somehow we used to have this thing call rule of law, and another as national sovereignty. now it's just Airstrip one and perpetual war.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday December 16 2014, @03:26PM
This is nothing new. One reason companies become multinationals is to be able to bully the governments of the countries in which they do business, including the nation they're ostensibly based in. And it is definitely true that the only allegiance that multinationals have is to their shareholders.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by emg on Tuesday December 16 2014, @04:17PM
Microsoft is toast if they don't beat this, because no-one wants to use a Microsoft 'cloud' that's accessible to the US government at any time.
Not saying that's a bad thing, but they have very good reasons to do everything they can to kill it. Many companies are avoiding 'cloud' services based in the US, but now they'll have to avoid any 'cloud' service run by a US company anywhere in the world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 17 2014, @02:22PM
This isn't about MSFT's butt, it's about any butt.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday December 16 2014, @04:55PM
> If they don't want domestic laws to apply to their foreign branches, don't have foreign branches.
We know that the Chinese government can force any of the giants to do whatever it wants. Remember when Yahoo gave Chinese activist's information for their arrest?
What if the next dissident to be arrested usually lives in the US? Should Yahoo provide the US-based data that will get him the same 10 years hard labor?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 16 2014, @05:49PM
Does Yahoo have a physical presence in China? If they do then the answer is that they must obey Chinese law.
If they think Chinese law is morally repugnant, then pull the fuck out of China. They can still offer services to chinese users without being physically resident there, that is the entire point of the internet.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Tuesday December 16 2014, @03:50PM
Ireland has long been known to have extensive supply of Black Gold, the one you can drink. How long before the US feel like it has to liberate us from Enda Kenny and his Dictatorial government where they are attempting to charge the poor populace for such basic human needs like water and the M50.
While they're here, liberating the shit out of Ireland, they can quietly seize Microsoft's servers. Kim Dot Com was just a warm up.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mtrycz on Tuesday December 16 2014, @04:04PM
16 years is like several eras in the Internet world, but it's still here, for future memory
http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/5/5263/1.html [heise.de]
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 2) by timbim on Tuesday December 16 2014, @06:28PM
Keep posting it, bro. keep posting it. Let us remind everyone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 16 2014, @06:55PM
Tell that to Kim Dotcom and Roman Seleznev.
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Tuesday December 16 2014, @07:05PM
The EU (among many other players, such as Brazil and China) have some very strict privacy guarantees that are not shared by the US. If this plays out in the US government's favor, and the US is allowed to subpoena data on any server anywhere in the world belonging to a company that has any business interests in the US, the outcome is disastrous.
Multinationals in the EU with US offices would be unable to offer the privacy guarantees required under EU laws, which would put any such multinational in an untenable position - they can comply with US law and be sued in the EU, or they can comply with EU law and be held in contempt in the US. Effectively, this would prevent any multinational from doing business in both jurisdictions. Google could no longer operate GMail in the EU. EU-based internet companies would not be able to open offices in the US. In both cases, citizens lose out - companies can offer a service in one place or the other, but not both. We'll move away from shared cloud services to "data nationalism," where moving information across national borders will be severely restricted (and would quite possibly become criminal in some places). The internet breaks down from a global network into a set of balkanized national networks.
This is bad.
I'm not asking you to feel bad for those poor suffering multinationals. But the repercussions here aren't solely felt in corporate boardrooms. They'll be felt by individuals, and felt severely.
(Score: 2) by elf on Tuesday December 16 2014, @07:51PM
I agree with everything you said but I don't think the US government is arguing exactly like you say.
I think (this is my interpretation) they are saying that if you are a US company with satellite office else where then laws applicable to the parent company apply to the children companies too where ever they are located as it is just an extension of the US company. This would mean European based companies with satellite offices in the US would not be effected in the same way because the us offices are an extension of a non US company. I guess this could be bad for the US as companies decide to make their head quarters out of the US to get around it.
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Tuesday December 16 2014, @08:16PM
IANAL, but I've been following this case from the outside, and to my knowledge, nothing in the government's argument turns on whether Microsoft is HEADQUARTERED in the US.
They served a US entity (Microsoft) with a subpoena for records. Microsoft responded with records located within the US, but did not include records located in Ireland. The US government argues the subpoena is good for records regardless of where they are located.
I don't see why the same argument couldn't be invoked where a subpoena for records held by (for example) Mitsubishi US couldn't be similarly extended to apply to Mitsubishi in Japan. In both cases, they are records of a different division of the same corporation held in a non-US jurisdiction.
(Score: 2) by emg on Tuesday December 16 2014, @07:53PM
"The internet breaks down from a global network into a set of balkanized national networks."
Not exactly. There'll just be the US Internet and the rest of the world Internet.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday December 17 2014, @03:43AM
Actually that's not entirely true. There's the Great Firewall Internet, the great Kim Jong-un The Great Internet, quite a few more highly censored/filtered and tainted 3rd world country fake democracy Internet that I won't bother naming.
(Score: 2) by romlok on Tuesday December 16 2014, @11:20PM
Google may not be able or willing to operate GMail in the EU, but nobody is proposing closing off the Internet, so nothing would prevent an EU-based citizen from using Google's US-based services, nor the other way around for a US citizen.
Further, I disagree that citizens would necessarily lose out. This could, in fact, be a positive thing for citizens; as the choice of legal jurisdiction for a person's data would be the customer's decision, and not solely determined by what is most profitable for a multinational mega-corporation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 17 2014, @12:21AM
I agree, we would give up a small amount of efficiency due to loss of scale in return for a ton of increased choice and variety of implementations. The whole balkanization of the internet argument does not apply, not even to totalitarian countries like China because 100% blocking of foreign servers is just not feasible for any country, it is simply too late to go full isolation.
(Score: 1) by radu on Wednesday December 17 2014, @01:42PM
Yes please