US government says online storage isn't protected by the Fourth Amendment

[Dietrichw]

Source

 

 

 

For people from other countries that don't know 

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

 

A couple months ago, a New York judge ruled that US search warrants applied to digital information even if they were stored overseas. The decision came about as part of an effort to dig up a Microsoft user's account information stored on a server in Dublin, Ireland. Microsoft responded to the ruling and challenged it, stating that the government's longstanding views of digital content on foreign servers is wrong, and that the protections applied to physical materials should be extended to digital content. In briefs filed last week, however, the US government countered. It states that according to the Stored Communications Act (SCA), content stored online simply do not have the same Fourth Amendment protections as physical data:

 

Overseas records must be disclosed domestically when a valid subpoena, order, or warrant compels their production. The disclosure of records under such circumstances has never been considered tantamount to a physical search under Fourth Amendment principles, and Microsoft is mistaken to argue that the SCA provides for an overseas search here. As there is no overseas search or seizure, Microsoft's reliance on principles of extra-territoriality and comity falls wide of the mark.

 

From the Justice Department's point of view, this law is necessary in an age where "fraudsters" and "hackers" use electronic communications in not just the U.S. but abroad as well.

 

 

..........   I want to go back to Germany

[XTankSlayerX]

Keep on digging.

[Thebman712]

why i keep all my stuff on 1hdd, and Canada ftw 

[SageC]

Nothing's protected by the fourth amendment besides privacy of corporations, apperently.

[StingBull]

Hey America, why are your governments so shit?

[MonkeyFace]

why don't we just become China?

[KingLuvely]

Hey America, why are your governments so shit?

Very good question. Still digging for answer. 

[Nineshadow]

Wait...I don't get it...

Because a law doesn't specifically apply in the US(even though it does,if it doesn't then they need to make it more clear),they can just ignore it in the rest of the world?

Waaat?

[Nineshadow]

Wait wait...

does this also mean they can confiscate bitcoins without a warrant?

Wow.

[E-Ro]

I say this as a very proud and happy citizen of the United States of America.

 

But this is total bullshit, land of the fucking free right? What happened to that? Privacy is going out the window, and its very problematic we keep this up and we will be in a police state eventually. 

[Poohy14]

how, you still own the property to the thing you do on the cloud, so I think it should be protected

[Misanthrope]

This is a legitimate hit against progress: If I was to take a PC that was always offline and then I was able to physically remove the hard drive and put it on a safe deposit on a bank I would be entitled to fourth amendment rights. Does this means that the concept of a private network is null and void? If that was the case then it would greatly hurt many businesses to the point that they wouldn't be able to conduct well, business. 

But of course we're talking about the land of Tom Wheeler as the head of the FCC why would anyone expect the government to have a sane policy on any other tech area?

[Imaginaerum]

I don't get it. Overseas storage isn't protected by our laws. This is why the pirate bay still exists. What is the big anti-freedom issue here or did I read the article wrong?

[mr moose]

why does the American government think it has the right to jurisdiction over anything that is outside it's physical borders? 

[IdeaStormer]

This is where people just cat out /dev/random to as big a file up on their free cloud storage, then buy stock in fileserver companies or drive manufactures. :lol:

Troll the cloud slurp-ers to no end.

[E-Ro]

hey, did you come here from asoiaf? welcome to LTT! always been a fan of yours.

 

Hahahaha, yeah that's me. 

 

I decided it was time to branch out, and LTT is a good fit.

[Builder]

Hey America, why are your governments so shit?

Because we have a large conservative contingent that's stuck in the 19th century trying to convince us that doing shit like this catches terrorists. None of the reasonable people want this.

 

I say this as a very proud and happy citizen of the United States of America.

 

But this is total bullshit, land of the fucking free right? What happened to that? Privacy is going out the window, and its very problematic we keep this up and we will be in a police state eventually. 

Land of the free...unless you have an Arabic last name or practice Islam. Or own a computer.

 

why does the American government think it has the right to jurisdiction over anything that is outside it's physical borders? 

Because a large portion of the country is convinced that we are the policemen of the world and that we get to decide what's best for every other country and if you happen to disagree then we will do whatever the fuck we want anyways.

 

Sorry for the profanities, stuff like this really pisses me off.

[EChondo]

So the stuff in online storage isn't mine? I don't own the stuff in "online storage"?

 

Cool, then I can't be charged with what I have in online storage, because it isn't "mine".

 

You want to play games? Then I'll play your game, and make my own rules.

[GMdavidson]

So the stuff in online storage isn't mine? I don't own the stuff in "online storage"?

 

Cool, then I can't be charged with what I have in online storage, because it isn't "mine".

 

You want to play games? Then I'll play your game, and make my own rules.

Actually a really interesting thought, however after doing some research into it, this isn't what the U.S Government is arguing. The government isn't saying that the information they are searching through isn't yours, they are simply saying it's not protected, nothing more. If you have child pornography or downloaded movies on a server in another country, they believe they can go through it. I believe this would also effect a large cloud style server with hundreds of people uploading to one place (for whatever reason). If one 'criminal' were to upload something(s) to a large server, the government would likely try and go through it, regardless if thousands others were having their privacy interjected. A completely BS decision made by one judge that I really hope microsoft deals with and takes to a court of appeals. They later released an official statement: 

 

 

The U.S. government doesn't have the power to search a home in another country, nor should it have the power to search the content of email stored overseas.

To protect this principle, we filed a formal legal challenge months ago to a U.S. search warrant seeking customer email content that is located exclusively outside the United States. Today we received an initial decision that maintains the status quo but is a necessary step in our effort to make sure that governments follow the letter of the law when they seek our customers' private data in the future.

When we filed this challenge we knew the path would need to start with a magistrate judge, and that we'd eventually have the opportunity to bring the issue to a U.S. district court judge and probably to a federal court of appeals. Today the Magistrate Judge, who originally issued the warrant in question, disagreed with our view and rejected our challenge. This is the first step toward getting this issue in front of courts that have the authority to correct the government's longstanding views on the application of search warrants to content stored digitally outside the United States. 

While the law is complicated, the issue is straightforward. It's generally accepted that a U.S. search warrant in the physical world can only be used to obtain materials that are within the territory of the United States. A U.S. prosecutor cannot obtain a U.S. warrant to search someone's home located in another country, just as another country's prosecutor cannot obtain a court order in her home country to conduct a search in the United States. That's why the U.S. has entered into many bilateral agreements establishing specific procedures for obtaining evidence in another country. We think the same rules should apply in the online world, but the government disagrees.

To be clear, we respect the critical role law enforcement plays in protecting all of us. We're not trying to frustrate any government investigations, and we believe the government should be able to obtain evidence necessary to investigate a possible crime. We just believe the government should have to follow the processes it has established for obtaining physical evidence outside the United States.

Bringing these types of jurisdictional challenges is one of the data privacy commitments we made in December, and we'll continue to pursue this issue because we believe we're right on the law and because our customers have told us they value our privacy commitments.

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/25/us-judge-search-warrant-overseas/

[Tech_Dreamer]

MURICA!

[geforceftw]

If I had a government that played fair I would be so happy

[nicehat]

The government still needs permission to use this evidence in a court of law, which is all that matters to you. And it probably doesnt matter to you, unless you are involved in the drug ring the feds are investigating, or any other nefarious activities.

 

That isnt the point you say? Its the principal? So what made you believe that storing your data in the cloud entitled you at least the same or more security than your own hard drive? I think its obvious that by its very nature, Cloud storage (which includes emails) are many times less secure than what you have at home. If private companies can snoop your data, the government should too. In fact they have been all this time, and we all knew it too. Its just that now its fashionable to be up in arms about it.  

 

And any of you that think that because you dont live in the US that you are free from this, I say open your eyes (looks at EU members, Australia, Japan etc etc). Your country is just as complicit in all of this as the US or any other country that partakes in this. If your country has laws against this, the US, its allies, its agencies including the FBI, CIA, or Interpol do not have such qualms. They will take the info, and pass it onto your country's authorities. That way, your country keeps its hands clean, and gets what everyone else is getting anyway. Everyone shares info, but not everyone steals it. Dont throw rocks, we all live in glass houses. 

[flibberdipper]

This country is so fucked...

[Misanthrope]

The government still needs permission to use this evidence in a court of law, which is all that matters to you. And it probably doesnt matter to you, unless you are involved in the drug ring the feds are investigating, or any other nefarious activities.

 

Or active opposition and political activism supporting views consider extremist and damaging as well. The point is that without proper checks and boundaries, without requiring a proper and thorough justification like probable cause then the potential for abuse it's there like it has been shown historically during the 60s and 70s for example.

[nicehat]

Or active opposition and political activism supporting views consider extremist and damaging as well. The point is that without proper checks and boundaries, without requiring a proper and thorough justification like probable cause then the potential for abuse it's there like it has been shown historically during the 60s and 70s for example.

 

So what? If you are a radical or someone supporting an extremist viewpoint, you have no place in this society. Lets be honest, true extremism or radicals are no longer a subjective thing. The era of McCarthyism is long over. Witch hunts are being exposed (case in point with the IRS scandal). The government can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants. If the gov't wants to prosecute you, which is all that matters to you, it still needs permission for the federal prosecutor to present that evidence in court, which means that it needs to prove that the information was obtained legally (check) and it obtained it because of a "reasonable amount of suspicion" (has to stand up to the judge's scrutiny). And if it is allowed in court, you better believe your ass, that its probably a good reason to go after that individual in the first place. 

 

Checks and balances for false positives and overreaching government are provided by the civilian courts and by American Juries. Thats how justice is handled. The people decide, not some secret kangaroo military court. Its fashionable to be up in arms, and outraged about over reaching government. This is not it. This is not an over reach by any stretch of imagination.