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The Supreme Court announced Monday that it would hear a major digital privacy case that will determine whether law enforcement officials can demand user data stored by technology companies in other countries.
In 2013, federal investigators obtained a warrant for emails and identifying information tied to a Microsoft Outlook account they believed was being used to organize drug trafficking. The problem was that the emails were stored overseas in Ireland, where the anonymous user of the account registered as a resident.
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If the court sides with the Department of Justice lawyers in this new case, the government will have unfettered access to the data tech companies store all over the world, provided it has a warrant. During the appeals court case, Microsoft's lawyers argued that the US is essentially trying to say that its laws extend across borders.
A superpower can demand all the extraterritoriality it wants.
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Wednesday October 18 2017, @09:58AM (1 child)
For obeying the EU law in an EU country? That'd be much more of a Jurisdictional reach legally speaking. They probably wouldn't be arrested for the same reason you can drink at 18 in the UK and then go back to a US state where the minimum age is 21 without worrying about getting arrested. They're obeying all the laws in the country they're in.
(Now if they went to the US, and had access the data while they were there, then could they be ordered to hand it over while they're in a US Jurisdiction, and get in trouble for not doing so? And would that create a liability when they went back? ....I suspect so, but that's a different case to this, and IANAL so who knows?)
All very true, but that's Microsoft's problem, not the US governments. From us.gov's perspective it's asking a US employee of a US company to do something in the US that they routinely do in the US every day.
The fact this also creates a problem for Microsoft because it's chosen a particular underlying distribution mechanic to try and sidestep US data laws, and advertises that as a feature, isn't necessarily the US govt's problem.
Now, if MS isolated those systems so it couldn't be accessed in a way that violated EU data protection laws (i.e. by preventing non-EU employees having direct access to the data) then that's one thing, and they do that for some German located servers which are actually overseen by Deutsche-Telekom - in that case I believe things would be simpler. But hey, like I said, IANAL so corrections welcome...
But right now MS won't/can't do that for the Irish data servers - I suspect either because that'd limit the ability of the US side to datamine the email, or it's maybe a bit too hard for them to run data centre remotely.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by choose another one on Wednesday October 18 2017, @07:45PM
Doesn't work that way anymore. If an adult in Germany has consensual sex with a 16yr old it is legal (age of consent = 14). Unless they happen to be a US citizen, in which case they have broken US law, in Germany. There are a now a lot of laws like this, the level of jurisdictional "reach" is well established.
It's everyone's problem, because it means that the jurisdictional overreach noted above has reached the point where someone is being required _by law_ in one jurisdiction to _break_ the law in another. This was probably inevitable when we started getting overreach laws like those above (because other countries' laws were considered "inadequate", as the EU considers US law on DP). It is also inevitable that if it happens to a corporation it will someday happen to a person who can be jailed for contempt (in either of the competing jurisdictions) - because corporations are persons in law anyway (and their officers can be jailed for contempt I think).
MS knew this was coming and were waiting for it, it is a test case, if they lose it may trigger massive changes in the way multinationals work - contracting out (as per Deutsche-Telekom) or subsidiarity (as per MS Ireland) is of limited use, it is control that is important. Multinationals may move to be headquartered in a "safe" country (that doesn't play this overreach game) with subsidiaries in each other country or trading-bloc with no control relationship at all between them. This is a simple step in the corporate shell game they all play anyway, the interesting thing is that the execs of the top level holding companies will still be targetable so they may have to become faceless. Does a big multinational need a visible CEO these days?