Microsoft calls for dismissal of U.S. Supreme Court privacy fight
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Re: Microsoft calls for dismissal of U.S. Supreme Court privacy fight
#2no mention of the law in the article. CLOUD Act:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/responsibility-deflect...
The bill (passed as part of the spending bill a week ago):
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/4943
Re: Microsoft calls for dismissal of U.S. Supreme Court privacy fight
#3While the new law isn't the best, this particular course of action based on the law seems completely reasonable.
New law -> new warrant -> no reason to continue wasting government $$ on fighting a court case that now has federal law clarifying the issues. Microsoft gets to save some money as well.
Re: Microsoft calls for dismissal of U.S. Supreme Court privacy fight
#4It is really sad and disturbing to me how little coverage the CLOUD act has gotten. A law was passed quietly that was snuck into page 2,201 of an unrelated spending/budget bill just before Congress voted on it to allow warrantless surveillance by foreign governments and law enforcement on any US citizen, and not one mainstream media source has written about it. It was signed into law by Trump just a couple days later without a single hearing or debate in Congress.
Please read:
- https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/23/cloud_act_spending_...
- https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/responsibility-deflect...
I personally believe the Facebook “scandal” is/was a smoke screen to draw the media attention away from this (4 or 5 year old scandal with regards to data collected for the Government to begin with). No private information was leaked (private messages, chats, etc) from Facebook as far as I am aware. I am not saying Facebook is innocent here – they are far from it, but I can’t stop thinking that the timing is too convenient and too much of a coincidence. Also recall that Zuckerberg liquidated around $500 million of Facebook stock in February.
All of the major tech companies (Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc) co-authored a letter supporting this legislation saying that it represents “notable progress to protect consumers’ rights.” despite the fact that it does the exact opposite. I think it will save them money from drawn out legal battles, legal fees, and the possibility of having to build additional data centers in other countries/continents to replicate and provide access to customer’s data for law enforcement agencies.
The CLOUD act allows access to ANY data including emails, private messages, etc. without requiring a warrant or having to inform the person that it is being collected. It gives additional power to the executive branch as the attorney general and certain members of the cabinet can access data on unsuspecting individuals without having to notify Congress or the Judicial branch. Also data collected from another party interacting with someone else could be used to criminally prosecute them even if they were not under any suspicion or investigation to begin with.
Re: Microsoft calls for dismissal of U.S. Supreme Court privacy fight
#5It is really sad and disturbing to me how little coverage the CLOUD act has gotten. A law was passed quietly that was snuck into page 2,201 of an unrelated spending/budget bill just before Congress voted on it to allow warrantless surveillance by foreign governments and law enforcement on any US citizen, and not one mainstream media source has written about it. It was signed into law by Trump just a couple days later…
It's a combination of corporate money in politics, and a nation of spectators, not citizens. The citizens have yielded their participation and power to corporations, on purpose, and many are proud that they've done this, if they care at all.
It's only hindsight being 20/20 that they go, oh fuck that was a bad idea, how did we get here? Complacency.
No one said democracy was easy. It requires constant vigilance. And people are too happy to be entertained by other things. Of course the better system would be the benevolent dictator for a push button operation, the small problem is they're not benevolent for very long.
Re: Microsoft calls for dismissal of U.S. Supreme Court privacy fight
#6It is really sad and disturbing to me how little coverage the CLOUD act has gotten. A law was passed quietly that was snuck into page 2,201 of an unrelated spending/budget bill just before Congress voted on it to allow warrantless surveillance by foreign governments and law enforcement on any US citizen, and not one mainstream media source has written about it. It was signed into law by Trump just a couple days later…
The CLOUD act allows domestic or foreign police to collect your data without a warrant, any review by a judge, or any awareness of the individual; and even explicitly allows foreign police to ignore existing US privacy laws applicable to US citizens
>no mention in mainstream media
Terrifying and surreal
Re: Microsoft calls for dismissal of U.S. Supreme Court privacy fight
#7I was afraid this was going to happen, after Microsoft became one of the primary supporters of the CLOUD Act recently.
https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2018/03/21/microso...
It's also the second time in the last few months that Microsoft has settled with the government instead of pushing forward the privacy fight. The government pinky-promised that it wouldn't abuse the gag orders anymore, and that's all it took for Microsoft to give up:
https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2017/10/23/doj-act...
It was starting to look like Microsoft's Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith was starting to care a bit about privacy with all the things he was proposing (like the Digital Geneva Convention) and these recent lawsuits he pushed the company to start against the government. But it looks like that fight was very short-lived and the pro-surveillance people in the company (Nadella, probably, going by how they implemented law enforcement's whole wishlist into Windows 10) won that debate.
So I guess we can no longer trust Microsoft to fight for privacy at all anymore. And with the CLOUD Act, nobody should trust any US-based company anymore anyway.
Re: Microsoft calls for dismissal of U.S. Supreme Court privacy fight
#8It is really sad and disturbing to me how little coverage the CLOUD act has gotten. A law was passed quietly that was snuck into page 2,201 of an unrelated spending/budget bill just before Congress voted on it to allow warrantless surveillance by foreign governments and law enforcement on any US citizen, and not one mainstream media source has written about it. It was signed into law by Trump just a couple days later…
It's a combination of corporate money in politics, and a nation of spectators, not citizens. The citizens have yielded their participation and power to corporations, on purpose, and many are proud that they've done this, if they care at all. It's only hindsight being 20/20 that they go, oh fuck that was a bad idea, how did we get here? Complacency. No one said democracy was easy. It requires constant vigilance. And p…
> the small problem is they're not benevolent for very long.
Would it be possible to appoint a dictator, who has no other incentive other then serve the people. For ex, they ll sever every human relation, cannot own property, will have zero privacy, cannot reproduce and have children etc. But they ll be held to the highest honor and their every needs taken care of...
In short, something like the life of a religious saint or a nun.
Re: Microsoft calls for dismissal of U.S. Supreme Court privacy fight
#9It is really sad and disturbing to me how little coverage the CLOUD act has gotten. A law was passed quietly that was snuck into page 2,201 of an unrelated spending/budget bill just before Congress voted on it to allow warrantless surveillance by foreign governments and law enforcement on any US citizen, and not one mainstream media source has written about it. It was signed into law by Trump just a couple days later…
> warrantless surveillance by foreign governments and law enforcement on any US citizen
Source? I only see that it allows foreign governments to get information on their own citizens, even if that information is stored on US soil.
Re: Microsoft calls for dismissal of U.S. Supreme Court privacy fight
#10Just going to give a shout out to the openness of the Supreme Court oral arguments. You can find them directly from the Supreme Court (https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_audio/2...) or in Podcast form (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/u-s-supreme-court-oral-a...).
First Mondays (http://www.firstmondays.fm) did an interview with Microsoft's Chief Legal Officer about the Supreme Court case and the CLOUD Act.
The combination of these sources made both the CLOUD Act and this call for dismissal somewhat unsurprising. It was pretty clear that the Supreme Court wanted congress to clarify the now antiquated Stored Communications Act.