Google, unlike Microsoft, must turn over foreign emails: U.S. judge

[steven36]

A U.S. judge has ordered Google to comply with search warrants seeking customer emails stored outside the United States, diverging from a federal appeals court that reached the opposite conclusion in a similar case involving Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O).

 

 

 

U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Rueter in Philadelphia ruled on Friday that transferring emails from a foreign server so FBI agents could review them locally as part of a domestic fraud probe did not qualify as a seizure.

The judge said this was because there was "no meaningful interference" with the account holder's "possessory interest" in the data sought.

 

"Though the retrieval of the electronic data by Google from its multiple data centers abroad has the potential for an invasion of privacy, the actual infringement of privacy occurs at the time of disclosure in the United States," Rueter wrote.

 

Google, a unit of Mountain View, California-based Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), said in a statement on Saturday: "The magistrate in this case departed from precedent, and we plan to appeal the decision. We will continue to push back on overbroad warrants."

 

The ruling came less than seven months after the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said Microsoft could not be forced to turn over emails stored on a server in Dublin, Ireland that U.S. investigators sought in a narcotics case.

 

That decision last July 14 was welcomed by dozens of technology and media companies, privacy advocates, and both the American Civil Liberties Union and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

 

On Jan. 24, the same appeals court voted not to revisit the decision. The four dissenting judges called on the U.S. Supreme Court or Congress to reverse it, saying the decision hurt law enforcement and raised national security concerns.

 

Both cases involved warrants issued under the Stored Communications Act, a 1986 federal law that many technology companies and privacy advocates consider outdated.

 

In court papers, Google said it sometimes breaks up emails into pieces to improve its network's performance, and did not necessarily know where particular emails might be stored.

 

Relying on the Microsoft decision, Google said it believed it had complied with the warrants it received, by turning over data it knew were stored in the United States. Google receives more than 25,000 requests annually from U.S. authorities for disclosures of user data in criminal matters, according to Rueter's ruling.

 

The cases are In re: Search Warrant No. 16-960-M-01 to Google and In re: Search Warrant No. 16-1061-M to Google, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Nos. 16-mj-00960, 16-mj-01061.

Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-usa-warrant-idUSKBN15J0ON

 

[steven36]

 

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Google told to hand over foreign emails in FBI search warrant ruling

 

 

A U.S. judge has ordered Google to hand over emails stored outside the country in order to comply with an FBI search warrant. The warrant in question pertains to a domestic fraud probe.

The ruling is notable because it goes against an appeals court judgement last year — recently upheld — pertaining to Microsoft customer data held in servers outside the US. In that instance a federal court ruled the company did not have to hand over data stored on its servers in Ireland to the US government, declining to “disregard the presumption against extraterritoriality,” as the judge put it.

 

 

However in the Google case, U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Rueter ruled on Friday that the act of transferring emails from a foreign server did not qualify as a seizure. According to Reuters, the judge ruled there is no “meaningful interference” with the account holder’s “possessory interest”, going on to assert that any privacy infringement occurs “at the time of disclosure in the United States”, rather than when the data itself is transferred.

 

 

Google’s legal team had sought to use the Microsoft ruling as precedent to challenge the warrant’s scope. The company had turned over data that was stored in the US only. In a statement it said it will be appealing the judgement. “The magistrate in this case departed from precedent, and we plan to appeal the decision. We will continue to push back on overbroad warrants,” it said.

Both cases involve warrants issued under a 1986 federal law called the Stored Communications Act, which — as you can imagine, given its date-stamp — has long been described as a “woefully outdated” piece of legislation vs the technology it is now being used to regulate.

 

 

The judge in the recent Microsoft appeals case wrote that the Act is “overdue for a congressional revision that would continue to protect privacy but would more effectively balance concerns of international comity with law enforcement needs and service provider obligations in the global context in which this case arose”.

The Department of Justice certainly appears intent on applying pressure on Congress via multiple cases in the courts — pressing the question of where the line should be drawn on extraterritoriality applications to access stored data.

 

 

And with the confusion of conflicting legal judgements being issued in circuit courts, there will be growing pressure for clarity — either by Congress revising the legislation, or by cases being pushed to the Supreme Court for a definitive ruling.

 

 

For privacy advocates this data access tug-of-war remains one to watch. Not least given that any concrete moves to expand the scope of domestic warrants outside the US could undermine international treaties by conflicting with data protection laws elsewhere. While, on the flip side, any legal clarity limiting the jurisdiction of search warrants to data stored domestically could push US legislators towards data localization rules.

 

 

In one related development late last year, Congress approved a controversial Supreme Court rule change expanding FBI search powers by enabling a judge to sign off a warrant for searches outside their own district — which could in theory be used to issue remote access warrants for the FBI to hack devices that are physically located out of their jurisdiction or even overseas.

Critics argued a procedural change was being used to push through hugely expanded powers for state agents.

 

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Without a debate or any new law, the rights of every American — and basic privacy of people around the world — have been narrowed. #Rule41 https://t.co/JstitiGBgs

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) December 1, 2016

 

 

 

By  Natasha Lomas

https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/04/google-told-to-hand-over-foreign-emails-in-fbi-search-warrant-ruling/