[Infowarrior] - Google stops challenging most US warrants for data on overseas servers

[Richard Forno]

Google stops challenging most US warrants for data on overseas servers

Microsoft keeps up the challenges while Supreme Court remains silent.

David Kravets - 9/14/2017, 5:50 PM

Google has quietly stopped challenging most search warrants from US judges in which the data requested is stored on oversees servers, according to the Justice Department.

The revelation, contained in a new court filing to the Supreme Court, comes as the administration of President Donald Trump is pressing the justices to declare that US search warrants served on the US tech sector extend to data stored on foreign servers.

Google and other services began challenging US warrants for overseas data after a federal appeals court sided with Microsoft last year in a first-of-its-kind challenge. Microsoft convinced the New York-based 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals—which has jurisdiction over Connecticut, New York, and Vermont—that US search-and-seizure law does not require compliance with a warrant to turn over e-mail stored on its servers in Ireland. Federal prosecutors were demanding the data as part of a US drug investigation.

In the aftermath, courts outside the 2nd Circuit, which are not bound by the ruling, began rejecting the circuit's decision and dismissing fresh challenges by the ISPs, including those brought by Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. In one instance, Google was even found in contempt of court (PDF) for refusing to comply with a District of Columbia federal judge's order to hand over data stored overseas.

The Supreme Court has not decided whether to hear the government's challenge to the Microsoft decision, which has huge privacy ramifications for consumers and for the tech sector. The sector is being asked by the US government to comply with court orders that sometimes conflict with the laws of where the data is stored.

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https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/09/feds-google-stops-challenging-most-us-warrants-for-data-on-overseas-servers/