When the Stored Communications Act 1986 was passed by Congress more than three decades ago, lawmakers surely didn't hear the tech word "cloud", leave alone considering the pitfall of "cloud". The law refers to both voluntary and compelled disclosures of "stored wire and electronic communications and transactional records".
Congress enacted this law to empower local and federal law enforcement agencies in order to fight the then-menacing drug epidemic that had been raging community after community. The law was passed to ensure that law enforcement agencies had the wherewithal and means to seek all the communications stored in the U.S. mainland and accessible by third-party (say, ISP) U.S.-based employees.
The scope of this law and the meaning of "cloud" are now being tested not in the technology world, but inside the ornate hall of the U.S. Supreme Court in a case that has pitted the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) against the technology behemoth Microsoft Corporation. The case in hand that's trying to address the issue is whether the federal government has the authority to force Microsoft to turn in communications stored on a "cloud server" that's residing in the Republic of Ireland. Microsoft's argument is simple, but compelling. Since the "cloud server" is based in Ireland, the act's jurisdiction is not automatically extended across the pond. The DOJ's argument is equally compelling too. Since the "cloud" works as a virtual hosting server, it may reside anywhere in the world, but the issue is who has legal access to it, who is steward of it and who is responsible for the upkeep of data. If U.S.-based employees are the responsible parties irrespective of whether a "cloud server" resides in overseas or not, the 1986 act is still applicable to seek data related to targeted subjects.
After the first round of argument, the oldest U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg correctly stated that when the law was enacted, nobody had any clue about "cloud", underscoring the difficulties for our apex court's legal luminaries to fully grasp and grapple the present day challenges posed by present day's new necessity "cloud" in the context of an archaic law when internet was rarely available and only "cloud" most of us knew was the one up in the sky.
Congress enacted this law to empower local and federal law enforcement agencies in order to fight the then-menacing drug epidemic that had been raging community after community. The law was passed to ensure that law enforcement agencies had the wherewithal and means to seek all the communications stored in the U.S. mainland and accessible by third-party (say, ISP) U.S.-based employees.
The scope of this law and the meaning of "cloud" are now being tested not in the technology world, but inside the ornate hall of the U.S. Supreme Court in a case that has pitted the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) against the technology behemoth Microsoft Corporation. The case in hand that's trying to address the issue is whether the federal government has the authority to force Microsoft to turn in communications stored on a "cloud server" that's residing in the Republic of Ireland. Microsoft's argument is simple, but compelling. Since the "cloud server" is based in Ireland, the act's jurisdiction is not automatically extended across the pond. The DOJ's argument is equally compelling too. Since the "cloud" works as a virtual hosting server, it may reside anywhere in the world, but the issue is who has legal access to it, who is steward of it and who is responsible for the upkeep of data. If U.S.-based employees are the responsible parties irrespective of whether a "cloud server" resides in overseas or not, the 1986 act is still applicable to seek data related to targeted subjects.
After the first round of argument, the oldest U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg correctly stated that when the law was enacted, nobody had any clue about "cloud", underscoring the difficulties for our apex court's legal luminaries to fully grasp and grapple the present day challenges posed by present day's new necessity "cloud" in the context of an archaic law when internet was rarely available and only "cloud" most of us knew was the one up in the sky.
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