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NY State vs Microsoft – Part 5
(You can find the previous part 4 of this topic here)
This week there was another progression in the infamous and long running Microsoft vs State of NY case – the one if you remember where the New York, USA court is demanding that Microsoft Ireland aquise to a subpoena issued in the USA.
Well this week the Second Circuit court of appeals agreed with Microsoft USA that the USA had no jurisdiction over assets within Ireland:
§ 2703 of the Stored Communications Act does not authorize courts to issue and enforce against U.S.‐based service providers warrants for the seizure of customer e‐mail content that is stored exclusively on foreign server.
A great writeup of the case can be found at Lawfareblog.
This case can still be raised to the Supreme Court, but since there are other legal methods for the USA to request the assistance of the law authorities in other countries, the door is finally closing on trying to impose domestic law on USA companies with assets in other countries.
The current global data economy and the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy act are woefully out of step, but this decision is the right one to support the global technology industry.
After all – if a court in the USA can compel the release of data from Ireland, surely a court in China can compel the release of data stored in the USA?
NY State vs Microsoft customer data disclosure update 4
A quick followup to my blogs of May 2015 here, September 2014 here and July 2014 here, where the NY State court is trying to compel Microsoft to hand over emails from one of their servers in Ireland. The case is still ongoing, and recently went through a session with the appeals court – you can find the rough transcript online.
In it the two sides argue the legal difference between warrants and subpoenas, and whether our emails should be considered “the business records of a company”.
This far reaching case will have ramifications for governments and service providers which way it goes – Microsoft argue that if it goes against them, that means Russia will be able to obtain records from US Mail.ru servers without the US government having a say, and the US government argue that if they loose, companies can simply offshore their customers data to block US Government inspection.
Which way do you think it will go? Comment below.
Microsoft vs NY State – Stalemate, or fiasco continues?
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Following on from the July report of the Southern District Court of NY’s attempt to compel Microsoft US to hand over personal emails from a server controlled by Microsoft Ireland, physically in Ireland (really!), Today Microsoft voluntarily offered themselves to be in contempt of court.
Ie, they know they’ve not done what the court asked, and they don’t intend to.
Bloomburg gave a brief summary of the event – which is a follow on from the July story. Read more…
Microsoft vs NY Court’s data request. A turning point for privacy?
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An interesting case brewing courtesy of Microsoft and the Southern District court of NY reported by The Register this week
Here, we have a court order from NY requesting Microsoft produce some emails from a server physically located in Ireland, and managed by a local Irish Microsoft subsidiary.
While there is long standing and well understood that company records stored oversees must be delivered on demand, for example Microsofts financial records across the world would have to be delivered to a court requesting such, the law is a little less clear when it comes to data not strictly owned by a company, yet managed by it. Read more…
Who?
 | EVP Cyber Product Innovation for Mastercard. Formally the Chief Technology Officer for Intel Secure Home Gateways, CTO for McAfee Enterprise Endpoint, CTO McAfee Innovation team, and Founder/CTO SafeBoot Corp. |
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