Microsoft Cloud Case Forever

In what seems like the longest running criminal case in history, drug runners are waiting for an outcome in Microsoft’s cloud email case.  Two stories in the Wall Street Journal (one an editorial and one a news report ) show the interest in this case.  We don’t get two stories on anything in a single issue very often.

The editorial says that Microsoft is right on the law on the issue of territoriality, i.e. a U.S. warrant doesn’t apply outside the U.S.  but is wrong on the law in all the other issues.    It cites a limitation expressed this way:  “Google cuts up emails into “shards,” which can move between countries within seconds without human intervention. U.S. internet users aren’t entitled to know where in the cloud their records are stored, let alone to recourse under U.S. law if a company moves them.”.  That may be true of Internet users, but may not be true of clouds per se.  I have always said that public cloud services were devised as a way to avoid any liability for services provided by a vendor, and it seems like this case is doing just that.  Drug runners know that too.  Microsoft says it has no idea where some things are stored, but can point to the fact that emails in this case were stored in Ireland, a dichotomy the courts can’t help but notice.   They can’t have it both ways.  

Microsoft is more than happy to help China with the most intrusive environment in the world, but won’t help their country of origin.  That part is not just about profits in China.  It is about law.  China forces coooperation by making laws that require businesses to turn over all control the Central government.  It gets source code and other proprietary information that way, all in the name of national security, providing a version of their own operating system which China can modify as it sees fit.  Apple has found itself in the same quandary this week with the keys to its own Apple accounts in China.  China wanted the keys and got them, something they have not done for the U.S. government.  China then uses that to get its intelligence services into the world’s networks. Not just those of the United States.  I hope the courts take some of that into account.