Microsoft Wins Protection for E-Mails Stored Outside U.S.

[Purveyor]

Source: Bloomberg

July 14, 2016 — 10:48 AM EDT Updated on July 14, 2016 — 5:04 PM EDT

Microsoft Corp. won’t be forced to turn over e-mails stored in Ireland to the U.S. government for a drug investigation, an appeals court said in a decision that may affect data security throughout the U.S. technology industry.

The ruling on Thursday overturned a 2014 decision ordering Microsoft to hand over messages of a suspected drug trafficker. The company argued that would create a “global free-for-all” with foreign countries forcing companies to turn over evidence stored in the U.S. The government said a ruling in favor of Microsoft would create legal loophole to be exploited by fraudsters, hackers and drug traffickers.

The law doesn’t “authorize courts to issue and enforce against U.S.-based service providers warrants for the seizure of customer e-mail content that is stored exclusively on foreign servers,” U.S. Circuit Judge Susan Carney wrote for the majority of the New York appeals court.

The government is considering its options, Peter Carr, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice, said in a statement.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-14/microsoft-wins-appeal-in-case-over-customers-e-mail-security

[MADem]

1. Well, this is a fascinating development, and it deserves a kick/rec!!

Sounds like a cottage industry is about to burst into bloom....and will this end up with the Supremes next year, I wonder?

[Igel]

3. Don't worry.

We'll hate it. Or somebody will.

Currently we have tax havens, where people can put money to avoid taxes. Note that often if you look at the countries the money's from you find that there's something else going on as well: These are countries where individuals can be targeted by governments for all sorts of newly illegal things (or so many things are illegal you get to pick and choose just the most politically profitable targets). They're also countries where the government from time to time has more direct means of taking wealth. So "tax haven" just means "secure from arbitrary or nearly arbitrary seizure."

If you're money's carefully stowed abroad and the government decides that it doesn't like you, you cross the border and aren't left with just what you had in your car or in your pockets. It's how the "oligarchs" Putin doesn't like survive, when not being poisoned or otherwise killed. It's how a lot of Russians survived in the 1920s in the First Wave of emigration.


I can image states setting up strong data privacy laws so that there will be data havens. You put your data there, and it can't be seized, either in the sense of copied or in the sense of "crap, my main and backup servers were both boxed up and taken away." This is already an issue in some countries--in one country I know of, "different thinking" news sources have had their offices raided for some reason, but the result was that all their files and computers and servers were taken off line and removed. "Five minutes to we go live on air" and "stay tuned for the results of our last 3 months' depth investigation" becomes a rerun of a 1940s movie. Literally and figuratively. The same country not only requires that Internet providers make their backups and subscriber login names/info available to the government, it also requires that those providers store all their data "in the Fatherland".

Now, we're likely to support the idea of data havens. Until we don't. Until the records are of a business that we suspect is hiding profits. Or a drug smuggler that we don't like. Or something like the Catholic Church's personnel records. You bring a wage discrimination suit or a suit alleging anti-LGBT discrimation and during discovery the court mandates discovery. Or the government subpoenas Al Capone's tax records. Suddenly they find all the financial records, personnel records, they're all in Vanuatu. Capones records are in a nice data haven in Sicily called "Data Nostra". Microsoft's records might be easily accessible 24/7 in Palo Alto to the entire accounting and sales departments, but suddenly when they're requested by a court it's "our data isn't su data," "that data is stored in Aruba."

[NaturalHigh]

2. A small victory for privacy.