
U.S. Proposes Allowing Foreign Officials to Serve Warrants on Internet Firms - hodgesrm
http://www.wsj.com/articles/obama-administration-negotiating-international-data-sharing-agreements-1468619305
======
HappyFunGuy
Sue in a corrupt jurisidiction to read enemies email?

Accidentally violate a privacy law?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy#Applicable_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy#Applicable_law)

Honest jurisdiction complies quickly and completely, less reliable
jurisdiction slow plays and gives inaccurate/no response.

Crypto please save us.

~~~
lisper
> Crypto please save us.

Working on it.

[https://sc4.us](https://sc4.us)

~~~
cjslep
What would be the benefit of buying sc4's HSM over a YubiHSM?

~~~
iancarroll
Besides the price (I assume), the YubiHSM does not support public-key
cryptography and is primarily designed for use with Yubikeys.

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primitivesuave
I believe that if this proposal passed, it would merely create "safe havens"
for Internet hosting in countries that are not part of this partnership, just
as there are currently tax havens in countries that do not respect taxation
laws of other countries. This is already the case for operators of websites
that infringe on copyright law, they simply choose to host from any of the
countries that do not respect international copyright agreements.

~~~
russell
Ah, Cryptonomicon by Neal Stepehson updated for the internet age. Worth
reading if you havent.

~~~
primitivesuave
Thank you for the pointer toward what seems like an excellent read! Just
ordered it on Amazon.

~~~
Freeboots
All his stuff is great. If you like it, check the baroque cycle too

~~~
luca_ing
Just as a counterpoint: while I like his stuff in general, I disliked the
baroque cycle (but still read the whole thing).

My recommendation: Anathem.

If anyone should ask I will explain my opinion on the baroque cycle.

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krapp

        Under the proposed agreements described by Mr. Wiegmann, 
        foreign investigators would be able to serve a warrant 
        directly on a U.S. firm to see a suspect’s stored emails
        or intercept their messages in real time, as long as the
        surveillance didn’t involve U.S. citizens or residents.
    
        Such deals would also give U.S. investigators reciprocal
        authority to search data in other countries.
    

Why does this seem like they're trying to 'legitimize' something that's
probably been done in secret for years?

~~~
fweespeech
> Why does this seem like they're trying to 'legitimize' something that's
> probably been done in secret for years?

Because that is exactly what they are doing based on what Snowden said?

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sathackr
What I don't understand is...

In the Constitution of the United States are these words "We hold these truths
to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..."

Morally, it seems that the US, as a people, claim the rights granted by the
Constitution are rights due to all men.

Why then, do we selectively apply these rights to only US citizens? Are the
citizens of other countries of a lesser status that they do not deserve due
process? Is that why it's okay to summarily judge and execute someone in
another country when we suspect them of terrorism? Why can we legally do
something(execute without due process, invade privacy, etc...) to a person in
another country, that is illegal for their own country to do to them?

Legally, of course, the Constitution can only be applied to those under its
legal protection.

But why is the rest of the world treated like second-class human beings by the
US Government?

The US Government should be bound by the constraints of the Constitution when
dealing with any human being, not just a US Citizen.

~~~
jdavis703
That has never been the case. The Constitution only counts slaves as having
3/5 of the value as a non-slave for purposes of electoral representation. Not
to mention the whole idea of slavery goes against the ideals of freedom. Even
after slavery ended the right to vote was routinely denied to former slaves
and their descendants, along with other rights such as due process.

~~~
didgeoridoo
The motivation behind the "three-fifths" compromise is frequently
misunderstood. Counting slaves as something "less than a full person" was
actually a win for the abolitionists. Anti-slavery delegates were pushing for
slaves to not be counted at all, while politicians from slaveholding states
wanted them to count as a full citizen — thus amplifying the voting power of
white southerners.

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codeonfire
How are they going to 'serve' warrants when foreign governments have no police
force in the U.S. Why wouldn't a company simply just ignore any warrants they
receive as this scheme seems highly illegal. The Obama administration is not a
legal body or a lawmaking body and doesn't have the power regardless to
enforce warrants from foreign governments.

~~~
KC8ZKF
Extradition treaties or agreements.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition)

~~~
codeonfire
How does extradition apply as there is no person to be extradited? The feds
would also not be able to legally search because of this little thing called
the fourth amendment and the fact that there is no court sanctioning the
search.

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sverige
There would be a court in that jurisdiction that would issue the warrant to be
enforced by their police arm (U.S. Marshals or their proxies in the case of
federal courts). This has been accepted in certain cases for a long time;
e.g., under maritime law, the Marshals can arrest a foreign flagged ship at a
U.S. port.

~~~
codeonfire
Maybe, IANAL but the article seems presumptuous since neither the executive
branch nor legislature have or control courts. Warrants are not needed to
search a car either, but a data center is not a car.

~~~
chris_wot
The executive don't dictate how the law is interpreted and they don't enforce
it, but they do make it. Treaties are one form of law, and whilst for some
reason the OP is focussing on extradition treaties (which will only mean a
person is moved from one country to another to be judged for a crime) there
are other binding treaties that could be used.

Still not a good idea though.

~~~
jschwartzi
The executive enforces the law, the legislative creates it, and the judicial
interprets it.

~~~
chris_wot
Oh drat. Complete brain fart, you are completely right - that's embarrassing!

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Implicated
Between this and the TPP - it seems as though the lines are getting
increasingly fuzzy between borders.

~~~
rayiner
This is what you get when you embrace internationalism. You break down borders
between countries, and now you not only have to deal with your own corrupt
and/or incompetent bureaucrats, but everyone else's too. There's no kumbaya
scenario where there are no borders for the proletariat but governments still
mind their own business.

~~~
hyperbovine
I notice that "internationalism" has acquired a pejorative connotation of
late, particularly in the right-wing US media. I'd just like to put in a good
word for internationalism, which has successfully staved off a land war in
Europe for 70 years now, and is the best / only hope we have of preventing
WWIII going forward...

~~~
Teever
Are you sure it wasn't the development of nuclear weapons that has staved off
another major war?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Given how close we were to launching them at each other during Cold War?

I guess we'll never[0] know. Human societies are a very complex system, so
it's hard to pinpoint the real, exact cause of a particular geopolitical event
- a cause that if it was hypothetically removed from the timestream, would
change the outcome of that event or prevent it from happening.

[0] - for a practical, pre-singularity definition of "never"

~~~
zarriak
I think all the examples of times in which the situation demanded the launch
of nuclear weapons but they were not launched demonstrates how far away
humanity was from ending it all.

~~~
fapjacks
This is totally off-topic, but your point can't be emphasized enough: Both
sides of that potential nuclear war went to great lengths _not_ to fire their
missiles. Up to and including insubordination by missileers in the silos.
Having spent most of my adult life serving in the infantry in various
warzones, I have a pet theory about why this happens. The reason we don't
start a nuclear war is because that would bring the war from the front lines
to grandma's house. War is a thing that plays to the male psyche of being a
kind of exciting grand adventure. This may seem hard to believe for those of
you that haven't been shot at or shot at other human beings. But after a
while, when the urgency of mortal concerns begins to wear off, you can see
things for what they really are. I think that war is a very male extension of
childhood play. It's exciting until faced with one's own mortality, and indeed
nobody thinks they'll be the ones getting blown to pieces. There's a great
quote by Winston Churchill about being shot at. But I think nuclear war is
such an existential thing that transcends conventional warfare to such a
degree that no one wants to "play" with destroying the everything. As proof of
my theory, I predict that the person that actually employs more than one-off
nuclear weapons (and escalates a conventional war to a full-scale nuclear war)
will be widely seen as being a total psychopath, legitimately insane.

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rahkiin
Would the USG require from the foreign government that the US can warrant on
foreign sole as well?

~~~
billh
Yes, the article states that this would take the form of reciprocal agreements
between the countries involved.

~~~
kevin_b_er
That's probably the end-goal.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-usa-warrant-
idUS...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-usa-warrant-
idUSKCN0ZU1RJ)

The feds can no longer spy easily on foreigners by using a US corporation as
leverage. However if they get a foreign government to agree to remote
warrants, they can then use remote warrants themselves. Since they can't
compel Microsoft Ireland to deliver emails, if they can just get Ireland to
agree to this, then they can just compel Microsoft Ireland through Irish
authority to do the same thing.

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marcoperaza
You're misinterpreting the ruling in that case. They ruled that the law that
the government was relying on didn't allow extraterritorial warrants for
electronic information. Congress could just change the law. And if this
becomes a major hindrance to American law enforcement, you can bet they will.

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smartbit
[http://archive.is/nfHk2](http://archive.is/nfHk2) without paywall

