U.S. Firms Dealt Another Blow by Order to Microsoft to Surrender Overseas Emails

If U.S. goverment officials really want to
promote American business and give the economy a boost, forget the
crony-tastic Export-Import Bank;
they should just stop making
services based here look like
convenient extensions of snoopy government agencies. But that’s
not the tack they’re following. Instead, Chief U.S. District Judge
Loretta Preska ordered Microsoft to cough up emails stored in
another country, chalking up another win for tech companies based
anywhere else.

According to
CNet’s Charles Cooper:

A federal judge said Thursday that Microsoft can’t prevent the
US Department of Justice from obtaining emails stored in a data
center overseas in a case that has raised concern among Internet
privacy groups and technology companies.

Chief US District Judge Loretta Preska today ordered Microsoft
to comply with a December warrant allowing the DOJ to obtain a
customer’s email-account data stored in Dublin, Ireland. The US
government is seeking the emails in connection with a criminal
investigation.

The case isn’t over yet. Preska stayed her order while Microsoft
takes it to the next level. The company’s General Counsel Brad
Smith
commented, “We will appeal promptly and continue to advocate
that people’s email deserves strong privacy protection in the U.S.
and around the world.”

There’s no doubt the company will continue to fight the
government’s effort to extract information from around the world
using the company as a proxy—out of survival instinct if for no
other reason. Communications companies elsewhere are already using
the long reach of the United States government as a marketing point
for services located outside of U.S. jurisdiction. After the
National Security Agency scandal broke last year, Daniel Castro of
the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
remarked, “Countries are competing to be the Cayman Islands of
data privacy.”

And yes, more than a few of these “data havens” are governed by
officials every bit as intrusive as ours. International telecom
Vodafone
recently clarified just how snoopy many governments can be. But
the U.S. is the country with the PR problem on the issue, whatever
the worldwide reality.

Microsoft has a chance of winning this case. Just how the Fourth
Amendment applies to data flowing around the globe is a matter
that’s still in flux. The Electronic Frontier Foundation argues
that the government’s interpretation of search and seizure
protections is bogus, and glosses over the inconvenient (for
officials) reality that simply copying data from wherever it’s
stored is a seizure.

By continuing to treat U.S.-based services as wiretaps on the
world, American officials hammer civil liberties at home, and hand
a huge marketing win to companies overseas.