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United States of America v. In the matter of a Warrant to Microsoft, Inc.
In October 2017, the Supreme Court agreed to hear this case that is being closely watched by major tech firms.
The question is this: can American law enforcement, with a valid warrant, obtain data physically held abroad by an American company? Microsoft argues that no, any data held abroad cannot be touched by an American court order, while the Department of Justice argues that this allows companies to easily defy judicial orders.
This particular case revolves around email held in an Outlook account in Ireland—it is not publicly known what the government hopes would be revealed by acquiring the email, which was sought as part of a drug investigation. Investigators have also not revealed whether the email account owner is American or if that person has been charged with a crime.
American authorities sought this data under the Stored Communications Act. The US government, could, however, use the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty process as a way to contact Irish authorities to serve a local warrant upon Microsoft's Irish subsidiary, which controls the data center, to obtain the data. That procedure, which may have already been undertaken, is likely slower than a SCA warrant. However, if the government did go ahead with an MLAT request, it was likely to have been fulfilled during the lengthy process of the judicial appeal.
On December 13, 2017, the Republic of Ireland filed its own amicus brief—supporting neither side—arguing essentially that it would comply with an MLAT request "if and when it be made."
Oral argument has been scheduled for February 27, 2018.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday January 03 2018, @03:27PM (5 children)
Maybe if the government weren't involved in shady shit they could just come out and tell us why they need the data. "Just trust us" is very much not a sentiment that should hold any water for anyone anymore when dealing with these guys.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 03 2018, @05:36PM (4 children)
"Just trust us" doesn't apply here - they have a warrant issued by a judge. The judge (leg. branch instead of enf. branch of gov.) trusted the case enough to issue the warrant. Now, of course, is whether the courts believe that such a warrant is lawful.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 03 2018, @06:18PM (1 child)
Enf. expands to enforcement, right?
What does leg. expand to?
Which branch is Congress?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 03 2018, @09:32PM
Legislative. You abbreviate it leg because it ain't got any...
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday January 03 2018, @08:41PM
Either
A) the owner of the account is American, in which case fine, why not just say so?
B) the owner of the account isn't American, in which case why is the U.S. bothering them abroad?
1) the person has been charged with a crime, in which case fine, why not just say so?
2) the person hasn't been charged with a crime, in which case why is the U.S. bothering them in the first place?
I'm not saying we need the name of the person or even what they did. But when they won't even answer those basic questions, yes it very much is "just trust us."
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 04 2018, @11:39AM
The judge in question is not a part of any branch of the Irish government and as such has no more say than a Pakistani judge has in the USA.
I guarantee you that the EU court is following this case very closely to see how to treat cloud services run by US companies.