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Cloud Act – Improve law enforcement access to data stored across borders

congress.gov

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Re: Cloud Act – Improve law enforcement access to data stored across borders

#21

Post by votepaunchy »

bscphil wrote: post #18

Its situations like this that remind me to be thankful that the authors of our constitution, with all their foibles and errors, set up difficult-to-remove constraints on government overreach. It's hard to say just how many times we've been saved by the protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. On another note, I'm confused by the very existence of "Fight for the Future". They seem to exist in the exact…

The 4th Amendment is an, uh, amendment to the Constitution. Scary to think how things would have worked out had there not been a Bill of Rights.

Re: Cloud Act – Improve law enforcement access to data stored across borders

#22

Post by dannyobrien »

tptacek wrote: post #4
fitzroy wrote: post #2

Additional opposition from the ACLU and the EFF: https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/internet-privac... https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/eff-and-x-groups-tell-... Counterpoint from Lawfare (published in cooperation with the Brookings Institution) supporting the legislation: https://www.lawfareblog.com/why-cloud-act-good-privacy-and-h...

I'm still pretty convinced the CLOUD act is a disaster but the Lawfare article makes some persuasive points: * There already is foreign access to US data about non-citizens under the MLA process, which is slow but has very few safeguards or privacy controls, unlike this new proposed process. * In the absence of sustainable process, there's good evidence that foreign governments are simply going to require data locali…

MLAT is slower, but in combination with ECPA, requires a U.S. judge to sign off on an order to obtain data within the U.S., and other countries get the chance to run U.S. requests through their domestic judicial process too.

The CLOUD Act would bypass that to allow the entire request process to run through the executive of each country, removing judicial review.

What the CLOUD Act has is a set of promises, and no oversight. What we have right now is oversight, which is slow because it's insufficiently funded. You can speed up the MLAT process, an internationally agreed standard that protects local processes. You can't see inside the CLOUD Act to see whether its processes are working.

(To give an example of this: we still don't know the other half of the CLOUD Act, which is the UK/US draft agreement on data-sharing. A lot of the promises of privacy and security rely on what this says. Why can't Congress, Parliament, and the British and American public see this before making a decision to switch? Maybe we can see that proposal, and then wait to see what the SCOTUS actually decides in the Microsoft Ireland case, before throwing out the entire current system?

Re: Cloud Act – Improve law enforcement access to data stored across borders

#23

Post by geofftrojans »

Has anyone seen an articulate defense of this legislation?

I can clearly understand the opposition, but I am having trouble figuring what is driving the introduction of the bill in the first place. I do not want to fully judge it until I understand what the other side is thinking.

Re: Cloud Act – Improve law enforcement access to data stored across borders

#24

Post by shaki-dora »

geofftrojans wrote: post #23

Has anyone seen an articulate defense of this legislation? I can clearly understand the opposition, but I am having trouble figuring what is driving the introduction of the bill in the first place. I do not want to fully judge it until I understand what the other side is thinking.

See the lawfare piece linked in other comments.

Re: Cloud Act – Improve law enforcement access to data stored across borders

#25

Post by bluetwo »

mikecb wrote: post #20
bluetwo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is a good overview of their intentions. Why is this a problem?

Because Congress' intentions are taken into account only after the actual text, and most of the time not at all (or they would have written their intentions clearly within the enforceable provisions.)

I disagree.

Re: Cloud Act – Improve law enforcement access to data stored across borders

#26

Post by Roboprog »

bluetwo wrote: post #19
tptacek wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you quoting the part of the law that doesn't have any legal force or effect?

Because it is a good overview of their intentions. Why is this a problem?

I feel like I’m looking at the output of the legal equivalent of “git show” when I tried to read the senate document - first, the commit comment (which does nothing, but does describe intent and list the author), followed by diff style patch script.

Anybody else get that feeling?

Re: Cloud Act – Improve law enforcement access to data stored across borders

#27

Post by tptacek »

bluetwo wrote: post #25
mikecb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Congress' intentions are taken into account only after the actual text, and most of the time not at all (or they would have written their intentions clearly within the enforceable provisions.)

I disagree.

That wasn't a statement of opinion.

Re: Cloud Act – Improve law enforcement access to data stored across borders

#28

Post by tptacek »

Roboprog wrote: post #26
bluetwo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is a good overview of their intentions. Why is this a problem?

I feel like I’m looking at the output of the legal equivalent of “git show” when I tried to read the senate document - first, the commit comment (which does nothing, but does describe intent and list the author), followed by diff style patch script. Anybody else get that feeling?

I think that's a very good analogy.

Re: Cloud Act – Improve law enforcement access to data stored across borders

#29

Post by kevin_b_er »

Note that they've forbidden judicial review. The disclosure merely has to be promised by Trump's subordinates that it doesn't violate your constitutional rights and the Judicial Branch is banned from reviewing it? Unconstitutional attempt to remove the Judicial branch from reviewing illegal acts of Congress and illegal acts by the Executive branch and thus an illegal law.

Are the "executive agreements" actually treaties and can Congress abandon its Constitutional duty to review and approve treaties? I say yes and no, thus Unconstitutional and thus an illegal law.

Re: Cloud Act – Improve law enforcement access to data stored across borders

#30

Post by Bartweiss »

bluetwo wrote: post #19
tptacek wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you quoting the part of the law that doesn't have any legal force or effect?

Because it is a good overview of their intentions. Why is this a problem?

It's not uncommon for the intent component of laws to be substantially different than the effects of the actual text. Sometimes because writing laws about complex topics like computer access is difficult, sometimes because the law has some effects Congress would rather not publicly announce. And since the text of the law takes precedence over this sort of statement in court, it doesn't necessarily offer any information as to what changes might actually happen.

Notably, laws like this almost always end up applying far beyond their envisioned scope simply because the landscape changes so fast. The intent of the DMCA or CFAA is substantially irrelevant when major legal cases end up hanging on technicalities in their wording.

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