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by mtgx
3000 days ago
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I was afraid this was going to happen, after Microsoft became one of the primary supporters of the CLOUD Act recently. https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2018/03/21/microso... It's also the second time in the last few months that Microsoft has settled with the government instead of pushing forward the privacy fight. The government pinky-promised that it wouldn't abuse the gag orders anymore, and that's all it took for Microsoft to give up: https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2017/10/23/doj-act... It was starting to look like Microsoft's Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith was starting to care a bit about privacy with all the things he was proposing (like the Digital Geneva Convention) and these recent lawsuits he pushed the company to start against the government. But it looks like that fight was very short-lived and the pro-surveillance people in the company (Nadella, probably, going by how they implemented law enforcement's whole wishlist into Windows 10) won that debate. So I guess we can no longer trust Microsoft to fight for privacy at all anymore. And with the CLOUD Act, nobody should trust any US-based company anymore anyway. |
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The law changed and the case now lacks merit. The legal question at issue in the SCotUS case can't magically include the CLOUD Act. That's not how the courts work. Microsoft will have to start over and file complaints against data requests under the CLOUD Act, but since that involves a different question of law this case before SCotUS is moot. Regardless of the decision in this case, the Federal government could just make another request under the CLOUD Act.