Google, unlike Microsoft, must turn over foreign emails: U.S. judge
Google, unlike Microsoft, must turn over foreign emails:
U.S. judge
PUBLISHED: 1:10 AM, FEBRUARY 5, 2017
A U.S. judge has ordered Google to comply with search
warrants seeking customer emails stored outside the United States, diverging
from a federal appeals court that reached the opposite conclusion in a similar
case involving Microsoft Corp.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Rueter in Philadelphia ruled
on Friday that transferring emails from a foreign server so FBI agents could
review them locally as part of a domestic fraud probe did not qualify as a
seizure.
The judge said this was because there was "no
meaningful interference" with the account holder's "possessory
interest" in the data sought.
"Though the retrieval of the electronic data by
Google from its multiple data centers abroad has the potential for an invasion
of privacy, the actual infringement of privacy occurs at the time of disclosure
in the United States," Rueter wrote.
Google, a unit of Mountain View, California-based
Alphabet Inc, said in a statement on Saturday: "The magistrate in this
case departed from precedent, and we plan to appeal the decision. We will
continue to push back on overbroad warrants."
The ruling came less than seven months after the 2nd U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said Microsoft could not be forced to turn
over emails stored on a server in Dublin, Ireland that U.S. investigators
sought in a narcotics case.
That decision last July 14 was welcomed by dozens of
technology and media companies, privacy advocates, and both the American Civil
Liberties Union and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
On Jan. 24, the same appeals court voted not to revisit
the decision. The four dissenting judges called on the U.S. Supreme Court or
Congress to reverse it, saying the decision hurt law enforcement and raised
national security concerns.
Both cases involved warrants issued under the Stored
Communications Act, a 1986 federal law that many technology companies and
privacy advocates consider outdated.
In court papers, Google said it sometimes breaks up
emails into pieces to improve its network's performance, and did not
necessarily know where particular emails might be stored.
Relying on the Microsoft decision, Google said it
believed it had complied with the warrants it received, by turning over data it
knew were stored in the United States.
Google receives more than 25,000 requests annually from
U.S. authorities for disclosures of user data in criminal matters, according to
Rueter's ruling.
The cases are In re: Search Warrant No. 16-960-M-01 to
Google and In re: Search Warrant No. 16-1061-M to Google, U.S. District Court,
Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Nos. 16-mj-00960, 16-mj-01061. REUTERS
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