Senators Introduce The Law Enforcement Access to Data Stored Abroad (LEADS) Act

Today Senators Hatch, Coons, and Heller reintroduced The Law Enforcement Access to Data Stored Abroad (LEADS) Act. [FULL TEXT] The Hill reports:

“As Congress works to reform our domestic privacy laws, we must also clarify and modernize the legal framework for government access to digital data stored around the world,” Hatch said at the Reboot Congress conference on Thursday. “These two issues are inextricably linked.”

The bill would require law enforcement to obtain a warrant if it wants emails or other communications stored in the cloud. Under current law, only a subpoena is needed to force U.S. companies to hand over electronic communications more than 180 days old.

The second piece of the bill would put restrictions on what kind of information the government can force a U.S. company to hand over, when that data is stored overseas.

Under the change, the government could use a warrant to get access only to Americans’ data stored overseas, and not from foreigners. But a U.S. company could fight the government order if it would violate the foreign country’s laws.

Read the full article.

Read a summary of the bill. 

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In a recent Teleforum, two expercts discussed the reach of federal warrants when it comes to data stored outside the United States. If you’re interested in learning more about the issue, that Teleforum call is now available for download as a podcast: The Reach of Federal Warrants – The Microsoft Case.

In December of 2014, Microsoft filed a brief with the Federal Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York to prevent the U.S. Department of Justice from seizing a customer’s data stored in Dublin, Ireland. It’s a case that raises important questions about the right of Americans to know what the government and companies are doing with sensitive electronic data. How do we ensure accountability both to the law through reasonable regulation, and to the courts through effective judicial review? The case also raises questions about the rights of people in other countries. Will they continue to have their privacy rights protected by their own laws? Anticipating a world where every device is a connected device, these are but a few of the important questions raised by this case regarding the future of privacy and regulations going forward.

• James M. Garland, Partner, Covington & Burling LLP
• David Howard, Corporate Vice President & Deputy General Counsel, Microsoft

Listen to the podcast.