US government asserts unilateral right to access private data, even if it’s stored outside the US
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When Edward Snowden leaked data about then-secret NSA programs and monitoring practices last year, he kicked off a serious headache for a number of American companies that do business overseas. Many of the biggest names in digital business, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Yahoo claim to have lost business with international customers as a result and have frantically reassured their existing customers that no, the US is not (or can no longer) spy on their data. Those arguments took a huge whack last week when the Justice Department asserted in a brief that data stored on an American company’s servers must be accessible via warrant — regardless of where the server actually is. (In this case, the unidentified account holder is an Irish citizen and his data is stored on a server in the EU).
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And if they don't comply?
Wow.. Awesome I see a mass exodus of US companies. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc might leave just to protect their customers... way to go US Gov't!
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Same for professionals. Why would people who can stay in the US stay?
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Whoof, that's rough; I'm interested to see how this is going to affect business internationally.
