Tech titan pals back up Google after 'foreign server data' FBI warrant ruling The kindly community of benevolent technology corporations has written to a Pennsylvania court to support Google as it fends off a warrant demanding information stored on overseas servers. The warrants were issued as part of two criminal investigations led by the FBI. In them, the government has demanded, among the other …
Downvoted for use of the term: "virtue signalling". You need only to wear a poppy in November or to grow or shave a beard to do that. As we all do this all the time we're not eating junk food in our underwear and choose to refrain from shouting at wheelie bins, use of this term contributes nothing useful to a discussion.
"@AC, Agree with you up to your last sentence which has nothing to do with the case and is just political virtue signalling."
@Ivan 4: It's called a comedic comment and is meant as a humorous remark on one of the prime idiots in the news lately. Being "offended" by such a comment strikes me as at odds with the general tone of the dullards and hillbillies that would much rather shout at you for being "politically correct." As is their usage as a derogatory remark rather than a plea for common decency. That went out the window when the hillbillies voted in a racist, misogynistic, anti-science, contractor and tax cheat, tea party douchebag dressed up as a "world leader." To remark otherwise places you directly in that camp. If that is your ilk, then live up to it, rather than complain like a bitch. Thanks!
I wonder what the response would be if a UK judge decided to issue a warrant to a US company to turn over the data in the US to a the London Met?
Maybe another country (not necessarily yours) needs to do this? Force this issue.
I do have to wonder why the MS case didn't set a precedent for this? Even if it's under appeal, the ruling would stand until the appeals process is completed. Just a tad bit of over-reach by the TLA in this and the local judge who is allowing it.
For that matter, if the FBI wants the info, why haven't they approached the court in the country in question about it? Or Interpol?
I do have to wonder why the MS case didn't set a precedent for this?
IIRC, the judge said that Google routinely backs up emails and changes the position of backups between data centers, for network balancing and the like. So they just have to "rebalance" the backups so that they are situated in the US, and then it's fair game.
It would make perfect sense for European judges to issue arrest orders against this American judge for violating European laws, in exactly the same way they'd do against an "Islamic judge" for issuing fatwas against European citizens or residents.
And Privacy Shield: HA! HA! HA!
Uncle Sam, please sod off.
Would be either economic (and subsequently political) isolation or the "normalisation" of international law.
I suspect the prevailing climate of ultra-nationalism favours the former, however both outcomes have potentially dire consequences, depending on whose laws we "normalise" toward.
Impulsively I wish for the former, even though I despise nationalism, purely out of the selfish hope that this will spare the rest of us the continued horrors of American hegemony.
But then I remember what happened the last time an ultra-nationalist superpower alienated itself...
If they can establish that then I think the authorities should have the right to do so with a court order - otherwise companies would be able to avoid lawful discovery everywhere in the world by keeping data in a different country from its owner.
If its a fishing expedition where they don't have any idea who owns the accounts, too bad. Go back and do more police work.
If they can establish that then I think the authorities should have the right to do so with a court order - otherwise companies would be able to avoid lawful discovery everywhere in the world by keeping data in a different country from its owner.
I think you are rather missing the fundamentals of sovereignty. If the account holders are resident in the US then the appropriate measure would surely be to apply sanctions on them to encourage cooperation. This might be appropriate for non-residents too but would tend to have less value in practice
Apply sanctions on them? What sort of sanctions? Take away their driver's license? Put them in jail? Beat them with a rubber hose?
If I was being investigated for a crime and the prosecutor got a court order to search my banking records, they don't go to me to for my bank card or online ID. They go to the bank. The same should apply if they want to search my email. They should go to my email provider, not to me.
I agree with the complaints about extra-territoriality. Definitely seems that it should be declined for this reason.
However, asking for draft messages is understandable because people including David Petraeus have been found out for sharing classified information and having two people sharing the same email account and reading messages in the draft folder to avoid actually sending messages in the hope of not being intercepted. This is almost certainly why the FBI wants the draft folder:
From the NY Times:
"In September 2012, Broadwell told agents that she and Petraeus would use the same email account, saving messages in the “draft” folder instead of sending them. "
While there are few countries in middle-Europe who would try this I could see Russia or China quite happy to use this to demand data from a US based server under reciprocity (if I have the spelling correct).
If that ever happens then the US are stuffed as they will not be able to block such a request without removing this legal fiction which allows them to try it on.
The US routinely spurns the principle of reciprocity, see how it handles requests about tax evasion.
But I don't really see Russia or China doing something like this except for propaganda: they have no concept of due process and probably have other ways of getting the information they want, which probably one of the reasons that services like Telegram are popular in Russia: if the stuff is properly encrypted then there's not much point in trying to get hold of it.
But for somewhere like the EU: pushing too hard on something like this is a sure way to get the new fig leaf called "privacy shield" declared insufficient. The FBI should follow due process and get a warrant in the country of the relevant jurisdiction, shouldn't be too hard if they have anything like reasonable grounds for suspicion.
I fear, Kevin, that you grievously misunderstand the norms of legality in international affairs ; to paraphrase a certain well-known political figure, if the US does it, it is not illegal. Such affairs are not based, as the naive might wish to believe, on the adage that what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, but rather upon quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi. There is not doubt but what Russia, China, and every country other than the US fall into the bovine category....
Henri
"arguing that since the suspects' data would be "searched" on US soil, there would be no "extraterritoriality"
Somebody please mail a link to this article to the EU. This is about as much as the Americans consider or care about anybody else's laws.
Yes, the data could be ransacked on US soil, but it isn't there. What "could" or "would" counts for nothing. Only what is. And what is is, yet again, some minor ranking judge listening to the three-letters and then ruling that US law applies everywhere. Again.
Poor FBI, can't do right for doing wrong.
I mean they could have just demanded the data and hidden the demand behind a gagging order.
Instead they craft a perfectly good warrant, get a judge to sign off on it and do it all out in the open.
You gotta give them some props for trying.
It does amuse me that they seem to think getting an American judge to sign off on something gives them global reach. They could have reached out to Interpol and then onwards to local law enforcement but nope. Bless.
"Judge Rueter was born on July 12, 1955 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He graduated
summa cum laude from the University of Scranton in 1977 and in 1980 received a J.D. from
Dickinson School of Law of the Pennsylvania State University, where he was Notes Editor of the
Law Review. From 1980 to 1982, he was a law clerk for the Honorable Joseph L. McGlynn, Jr.,
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
He was an associate of the Philadelphia law firm of White and Williams from 1982 to
1985. From 1985 to 1994, Judge Rueter was an Assistant United States Attorney in Philadelphia,
and from 1990 to 1994, he served as Chief of the Narcotics Section. Judge Rueter was appointed
as a United States Magistrate Judge on February 22, 1994. He previously served as Chief
Magistrate Judge from 2007 to 2011."
As a mimimum, it'll keep a single copy / referencing that single copy per account. aka. De-dupe Backups. If that info is regularly accessed, it will be reconstructed as a local easily accessed cached copy, until such time its dedundant unused data.
Well, better off there than planting the flag right smack dab in the middle of SF!
Until the 1990s, San Francisco didn't want to have anything to do with Silicon Valley. Now, they think they are part of it because some crappy web companies setup shop in their overpriced sea-town in the past decade or two. :P Valley Wankers!
If the information that the nosey judge wants is for non-US citizens and the data is stored in Europe, the judge should know better and have done some research into EU privacy laws. Unopened/unread mail in the US is supposed to be immune from subpoena to prevent implicating somebody using communications for which they have no knowledge.
People should take notice about what is being requested and how far back and realize that using Google is not a good thing. Using the same set of facts, writers can create thousands of movie scripts including ones that have you living behind bars. The less The Man knows about you, the better.
Eric and Sergey have long exchanged their company principle of "Do no evil" in favor of "make as much money as possible and buy a Hawaiian island like Larry".
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