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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday January 03 2018, @11:41AM   Printer-friendly
from the like-two-rams dept.

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.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/microsoft-doj-set-to-go-head-to-head-at-supreme-court-in-2018/

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 2) by dry on Thursday January 04 2018, @03:40AM

    by dry (223) on Thursday January 04 2018, @03:40AM (#617496) Journal

    As a non-American, this sounds like a positive. The Americans have too much power and are a major threat to freedom. Shit, quite a few Americans don't even believe the Bill of Rights applies to non-citizens and American companies routinely infringe on peoples rights.

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