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Google ordered to turn over foreign emails
So much for Microsoft's court win providing a neat and tidy defense against law enforcement requests for foreign data. As part of an FBI fraud investigation, a Philadelphia judge has ordered Google to obey search warrants for emails stored on servers outside the US. The court ruled that transferring the messages to the US didn't count as seizing foreign information, since there was no "meaningful" damage to the email account holder's "possessory interest" in that data. The privacy violation occurs when emails are disclosed in the US, the judge says.
US law enforcement can't ask companies to turn over foreign data
Microsoft has fought a long battle to prevent American law enforcement from demanding overseas data, but it can rest easy... at least, for now. A stalemate in a federal appeals court has upheld a July 2016 ruling that judges can't issue warrants for data on servers located overseas. The court determined at the time that the Stored Communications Act didn't cover searches outside the US, shooting down an attempt by investigators in a drugs case to collect email from a Microsoft server in Ireland.
