Tech Giants To Stop Overseas Snooping By U.S.


BANGALORE: Four large technology companies along with Microsoft that host cloud computing services have used a Manhattan Court case to stop the US snooping on their data. The companies have also said that they have no right to take hold of the data stored outside the country.

Lawyers for the companies say the perception was stoked by former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden's revelations last year that the US and other countries' intelligence agencies routinely and indiscriminately gather and store huge amounts of data from phone calls and Internet communications.

 

And it was harmed again in April, they say, when a Manhattan magistrate judge concluded it was legal for the government to order Microsoft to comply with a sealed search warrant for a consumer email account it stores in Dublin, Ireland.

A Microsoft vice president wrote in a court document that the company offers its cloud services in more than 100 countries and tries to keep a customer's data - including email, calendar entries and documents - in a data center near where the customer is located for easy and cost-effective access. Microsoft maintains data centres worldwide, including in the United States, Ireland, the Netherlands, Japan and Brazil.

The mammoth software company said in court papers this month that the ruling threatens to rewrite the Constitution's protections against illegal search and seizure, damage US foreign relations and "reduce the privacy protection of everyone on the planet."

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