U.S. judge rules search warrants extend to overseas email accounts

Overall the US government acts as if other countries are not really sovereign entities, because software is eating the world. Hence the US is entitled to listen to everything non-US people say, read everything non-US people write, search data not stored on US soil, monitor non-US financial transactions, etc. All without having to respect any law of any other country.<p>The EU data protection bans storage of data about EU citizens outside the EU. Eventually the ban may have to include storage of data by US companies, even if in the EU.<p>This is going to end badly for American Internet companies. It&#x27;s not just the NSA scandals. Americans need to realize that people outside the US have options, and at some point it will become a major handicap to be a US business -- seen as a conduit for US government power and spying.<p>I don&#x27;t see how the US could or will step back from these abuses of power.

This will embolden countries like Germany and Brazil even more to force Google and Microsoft to create local subsidiaries&#x2F;different companies there and hold their citizens data <i>only</i> in those datacenters and with that specific company.<p>And I don&#x27;t blame them. As a response to this, and to avoid that, Google and Microsoft should be adopting end-to-end encryption in their services as soon as possible, because it&#x27;s the only way they can now say with a straight face that EU citizen data is &quot;safe&quot; with them.<p>Otherwise (hopefully) people will be using less and less American services over the next few years. Europeans (and others) can&#x27;t and shouldn&#x27;t feel safe with their data used by American companies now.

&gt; <i>&quot;A U.S. prosecutor cannot obtain a U.S. warrant to search someone&#x27;s home located in another country, just as another country&#x27;s prosecutor cannot obtain a court order in her home country to conduct a search in the United States,&quot; the company said.</i><p>Sure, the U.S. government cannot send agents to search Irish homes owned by U.S. citizens, but it can damn well order the citizen in question to retrieve and present a certain document that is known to be stored in the basement of that home, and threaten to hold him in contempt if he fails to have it shipped stateside within a few weeks. So according to Microsoft&#x27;s own analogy, there&#x27;s nothing surprising about this decision.<p>What I&#x27;d really like to know is what happens if it is illegal in the country where the server is located for Microsoft to disclose the server&#x27;s contents to the U.S. government.<p>I don&#x27;t know much about EU privacy laws, but surely some countries take issue with the personal information of their own citizens being shipped abroad? Could U.S. corporations (and&#x2F;or their EU subsidiaries, if any) argue that it would be illegal for them to obey this U.S. judgment?

<i>the burden on the government would be substantial</i><p>That was the idea embodied in the Bill of Rights.

What happens if&#x2F;when another country (China? India?) introduces a similar law, requiring a company that operates there to make data on u.s citizens available even if its stored outside of the country. Will these companies stop operating in these markets?

Looks like doing business with US companies is now in severe trouble as the US does not care to obey foreign privacy laws. At least it&#x27;s official now.

EU based internet services are looking better and better each day - especially the German ones.

The EU has a track record of defying US extraterritoriality so I would be surprised if the data gets handed over.<p>Also, this ruling was made by a magistrate judge, which is prett low down on the judicial totem pole. This ruling <i>will</i> be appealed, which means that it&#x27;ll be reviewed by a judge who doesn&#x27;t, in fact, have his head up his ass.

Devil&#x27;s advocate: what if MS, Google et al had all the US persons&#x27; email and files stored in Canada or Germany...on purpose? You type your email in Washington DC and then it is stored in a server somewhere in Germany. No can do says Microsoft.