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Microsoft Defies Court Order, Will Not Give Emails to US Government

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Re: Microsoft Defies Court Order, Will Not Give Emails to US Government

#51

Post by gpm »

Joeri wrote: post #48
jnbiche wrote: post #5

The casualness with which the U.S. Government asks a private company to violate EU and Irish law is truly disturbing. The U.S. Gov has gone mad with power. And for perhaps the first time ever: bravo Microsoft! I don't even care if you did if for the PR, it's still a brave stand.

Violating the EU data protection directive would make microsoft liable for a fine of up to 5% of global turnover. Microsoft has been the recipient of EU fines before, so they are likely to wish to play it safe. On the other hand, violating a court order will find them in contempt of court, which may also lead to coercive fines. Since they're facing fines either way, can we assume they are actually making a moral stan…

No, we can't assume that, for the simple reason that the logical financially motivated conclusion to that is take whichever path will result in less fines. I'm not experienced in this area but I doubt the US would fine Microsoft anywhere close to 5% of it's global turnover for contempt of court while an appeal is pending.

Re: Microsoft Defies Court Order, Will Not Give Emails to US Government

#52

Post by Curmudgel »

mrich wrote: post #47
jnbiche wrote: post #5

The casualness with which the U.S. Government asks a private company to violate EU and Irish law is truly disturbing. The U.S. Gov has gone mad with power. And for perhaps the first time ever: bravo Microsoft! I don't even care if you did if for the PR, it's still a brave stand.

I'm amazed how even these US judges cannot see what is wrong with this. Or are they themselves under pressure/threat from the executive and NSA/CIA?

No. Preska is a Bush appointee.

Re: Microsoft Defies Court Order, Will Not Give Emails to US Government

#53

Post by jkestner »

ryanburk wrote: post #4

if the ruling is upheld, web services that face legal discovery like google, dropbox, facebook, microsoft, etc will face an amazing burden of data retention cost. there is an amazing tax already on these services having to implement per government specific retention policies based on where they do business. for example in ireland, by law you need to be able to produce up to a year of content even if an account has be…

If data retention becomes a liability, will companies be forced to consider encrypting data or taking measures to ensure they don't ever see it, and thereby upend their business models? Or will governments require them to have a backdoor to the data?

Re: Microsoft Defies Court Order, Will Not Give Emails to US Government

#54

Post by jqm »

ignostic wrote: post #31
shawnz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a difference morally between doing it for PR and doing it for money?

Good question. I'd say they're barely distinguishable. If MS relents, they're allowing a breach of trust that will make current and potential customers shop for non-US-based competitors.

I'm guessing this is inevitably already going to happen over time....

You can't have people unlearn what they have learned. If your wife cheats on you, even if she manifestly passes on an opportunity to do it again in a well publicized display, you are going to have a hard time trusting her from then on and if fidelity is important to you, you may start to examine your options...

Microsoft isn't going anywhere soon. They are embedded. But they are not going to be generally trusted again by many, and I don't believe this can be fixed by a couple of high profile PR schemes. This isn't MS hatred nor NSA rejection. Just stating the reality of the situation. Alternatives are going to be looked for and this case won't change that.

Re: Microsoft Defies Court Order, Will Not Give Emails to US Government

#55

Post by pjc50 »

serve_yay wrote: post #20

Not that I don't respect the decision, but something tells me that we would be less happy, in other instances, to see giant companies like MS decide when the law should apply to them.

Which law? They're being ordered to do something which they claim breaks Irish EU data protection law. It's a catch-22 situation; if they did comply with the court order they would be deciding that Irish law didn't apply to them.

Re: Microsoft Defies Court Order, Will Not Give Emails to US Government

#56

Post by pjc50 »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #32
serve_yay wrote: post #20

Not that I don't respect the decision, but something tells me that we would be less happy, in other instances, to see giant companies like MS decide when the law should apply to them.

Not only that, but the idea that a US person or company can dodge a court order just by transferring the data in question (or a physical object such as a server, or an item of disputed ownership) to another country seems totally unsupportable. I don't see how the judge has erred by issuing this order and expecting it to be followed. As I see it, the judge had no choice but to issue the order, and Microsoft has no rat…

transferring

I don't see any claim that it was ever in the US.

Re: Microsoft Defies Court Order, Will Not Give Emails to US Government

#58

Post by jrapdx3 »

This case may be the leading edge of a huge wave with a global sweep.

The sticky point may be that the locality of data is impermanent and ambiguous. In the MS case, though the data is said to be stored on a server in Ireland, it could just as well be distributed, moved or duplicated anywhere, and for all we know it already has been.

Eventually laws will have to come to terms with the implications of the Internet: data, like a flock of migratory birds, for its own reasons goes one place to another and knows nothing about national boundaries.

Re: Microsoft Defies Court Order, Will Not Give Emails to US Government

#59

Post by yutah »

jrapdx3 wrote: post #58

This case may be the leading edge of a huge wave with a global sweep. The sticky point may be that the locality of data is impermanent and ambiguous. In the MS case, though the data is said to be stored on a server in Ireland, it could just as well be distributed, moved or duplicated anywhere, and for all we know it already has been. Eventually laws will have to come to terms with the implications of the Internet: da…

one global country would probably fix that... or I guess you could end the Internet... but to tell you the truth, "cloud computing" needs to end instead.

Re: Microsoft Defies Court Order, Will Not Give Emails to US Government

#60

Post by toyg »

burgers wrote: post #21

> Judge Preska of course feels differently, and she has consistently agreed with the prosecution argument that the physical location of email is irrelevant because Microsoft controls the data from its base in the United States. I find this bit very interesting. As opposed to Microsoft being a US company, it is that it's operations are located in the US. I wonder what effects this decision could have on the US labor m…

> if companies relocate operations in the same way they relocate certain things for tax avoidance.

They already do. Umpteen companies run servers in this or that country for specific legal reason which are not necessarily related to taxation. Classic case: companies with dubious stands in regard to copyright law.

The PATRIOT Act already forced a number of companies to open European datacentres to satisfy particularly-picky customers; it's just that this particular threat was considered mostly theoretical... until Edward Snowden proved the opposite. Now all cloud-services providers must prove their virginity or risk losing sizeable chunks of lucrative European markets, hence why Microsoft is making a stand (on this case, at least).

I do applaud them: if anything, once this process is over, we'll have a clearer picture of what exactly the US government can or cannot ask from US-based cloud companies. We're currently in a fog where the law says certain things but practical experience says another. A realignment in one way or the other would be most welcome.

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