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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

#81

Post by gtirloni »

sashagim wrote: post #44
ignostic wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The U.S. Gov has gone mad with power. Agreed. Hopefully this encourages more people to stand up to unreasonable violations of privacy from our government. > 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. The question of whether a company is following principles or motivated by profit/PR is so strange to me. The question is nonsense and the…

Microsoft is not a person, but it is an organization, and like every organization has a corporate culture. For me, it's absolutely like having a character, exactly like a person has. It certainly starts with the founders, but grows with the company through years of hiring decisions, personal example, and internal communication. A company, as an organization, can be intelligent or stupid, creative or conservative; it…

Treating Microsoft like "a" person, hmm. I think that works, but we have to consider that persons are rarely 'plain', exhibiting simplistic behavior. If we are to consider Microsoft as person, like we are, we ought to consider it can exhibit truly good and truly bad behaviors sometimes.

That being said, have Microsoft's past mistakes been too big that (what some consider) the good behavior exhibited lately regarding privacy issues is a drop of pure water in an ocean of oil? I'm not implying anything, just asking to provoke thinking.

Can people change? Can large companies change their character? Is Microsoft changing or we are seeing some schizophrenic good actions lately? Food for thought :)

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

#84

Post by X-Istence »

toyg wrote: post #60
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…

You think companies are being picky when they want their data stored in a manner that doesn't break the law of the countries they are based in?

That's a VERY US centric view...

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

#85

Post by X-Istence »

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…

Except that a customer of Microsoft Ireland purchased cloud based storage in the EU. Now the US is claiming that Microsoft USA should retrieve the data from Microsoft Ireland because Microsoft USA is the controlling entity.

The data was never in the US of A to begin with, and if Microsoft USA forces Microsoft Ireland to retrieve the file Microsoft USA can kiss their entire cloud offering Goodbye in Europe since no-one will use them because the data could potentially be accessed by the US government with no regard for EU laws.

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

#86

Post by CamperBob2 »

toyg wrote: post #74
CamperBob2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> When they permitted intelligence agencies to run amok [...] they thought very little about the long term consequences I don't think intelligence agencies are involved here at all. In fact, them "running amok" would be easier in this case: they would have those emails already, process be damned. In truth, this particular process would have happened at one point or another regardless of intelligence services, it's ju…

The involvement of intelligence agencies is indirect but very much relevant. Widespread disclosure of illegal domestic spying, including misuse of intelligence data for commercial purposes, incentivizes customers to keep their data out of the US. As a result, companies like Microsoft need to be prepared to maintain customer data outside the US, or they won't be able to compete with providers in other countries.

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

#87

Post by CamperBob2 »

pjc50 wrote: post #56
CamperBob2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not convinced it matters. Should Microsoft Ireland be allowed to print their own US currency, for example, as long as they never bring any of it into the US?

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

#88

Post by belovedeagle »

spydum wrote: post #82

So, I wonder if Microsoft wins this appeal, how practical would it be to stripe encrypted data across data centers in 2+ countries. The idea being that to obtain the data stored, would require legal authorization in each country?

A possible argument by the feds comes to mind: recall that in Lavabit, they argued that access to the SSL keys was a "necessary" part of implementing the court order. In such a case as you describe they'll just pull the same trick.

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

#89

Post by randallsquared »

toyg wrote: post #79
curiousDog wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. And I'm surprised the European governments are just taking it.

That's incorrect. European governments are "just taking it" when it comes to some areas; in particular anything to do with security is left to the US to do as they please, because they bear the brunt of our defensive needs (something that is not going change anytime soon); and multinational companies are powerful because of their money, regardless of where they come from. In this case, EU data-privacy laws emerged as…

> because they bear the brunt of our defensive needs (something that is not going change anytime soon)

That may change more swiftly than you imagine. It seems like the US is already far more reluctant than ten years ago to go rushing in.

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

#90

Post by waps »

mercurial wrote: post #40
ignostic wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The U.S. Gov has gone mad with power. Agreed. Hopefully this encourages more people to stand up to unreasonable violations of privacy from our government. > 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. The question of whether a company is following principles or motivated by profit/PR is so strange to me. The question is nonsense and the…

> Microsoft is not a person with principles. It's 90,000ish people with different principles. I'm sure some people really believe in the right to privacy, some want to avoid angering customers, some don't care, etc. The reasons and motivations behind a company's actions are as diverse as the actors involved. No, they really aren't. It's not even true for a democracy, where "we the people" get to vote for a small elit…

What I can't believe is that people seem to be seriously suggesting taking power away from the justice system.

Are we truly that insane ?

Wasn't the whole problem with "spying" that there wasn't judicial oversight ? Here we have a case where federal prosecutors went for judicial oversight, were put in the right by a judge. Isn't that exactly what you'd want ?

Laughable comment in the article:

> Let there be no doubt that Microsoft's actions in this controversial case are customer-centric.

Really ? Have we truly forgotten this quickly what happened ?

http://thehackernews.com/2014/03/microsoft-admits-spying-on-...

Btw : keep in mind that this case is also about setting precedent. That is why both parties want it to go to appeal, and don't care about the outcome of this particular trial. It is beside the point. Both the US federal police and Microsoft want the American justice system to decide this issue, and well, the current judge can't make that decision (well, technically it wouldn't be final).

So keep in mind this judge is mostly doing the minimum her job requires and trying to be home in time for dinner here. There is no decision made, nothing like what the article claims has happened, legally speaking.

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