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Online privacy and law enforcement
网络隐私与执法
Unwarranted
毫无道理
Why Microsoft is resisting an official demand to hand over data
为什么微软要抵制官方要求拒不交出数据
LAWYERS for Microsoft and the American government are due to face each other in a court inNew Yorkon July 31st. The two sides have been arguing for months about a warrant, served on Microsoft in December, which requires the company to hand over e-mails stored at data centres inIreland. Microsoft has already challenged the warrant once, but the judge who issued it upheld it.
微软与美国政府的双方律师预订于7月31日在纽约的一个法庭上碰面。双方对于在12月送达微软的搜查令的争论已持续数月，这一搜查令要求微软交出存储在爱尔兰数据中心的电子邮件。微软曾对此搜查令提出过质疑，但是发出这一搜查令的法官坚持要搜查。
Microsoft has two main objections to the warrant, which law-enforcement officers sought during an investigation into drug-trafficking. First, it says, an American warrant cannot be used to seize evidence held abroad. Second, it claims that the warrant breaks the constitution's Fourth Amendment, which forbids “unreasonable searches and seizures”,by not specifying where the evidence is to be taken from. The warrant refers only to “information…stored at premises owned, maintained, controlled or operated by Microsoft”. The company says the government should get the information by approaching the Irish authorities, using a bilateral treaty.
这一搜查令的执法人员在调查过程中追查毒品交易，而微软对此搜查令主要有两项反对。首先，美国的搜查令不能用于没收保存在国外的证据。其次，微软声称，这一搜查令违反了宪法第四修正案，而这一修正案禁止不指明证据去向的不合理的搜查与扣押。搜查令仅涉及储存在由微软所拥有、维护、控制或管理的场所的那些信息。微软表示，政府应该使用一项双边条例，通过爱尔兰当局得到那些信息。
The government calls this absurd. If Microsoft's argument stands, it believes, criminals could put electronic evidence beyond the long arm of the law simply by claiming to live outside theUnited States.The government also says using treaties to seek information can be slow.
政府称这很荒谬。它认为，如果微软的说法站得住脚，犯罪分子就能声称居住在美国境外，轻易的把电子证据储存在法律臂长不及的地方。政府也称，使用跨国条例来查找信息，进度缓慢。
What is more, it argues, Microsoft is defining a warrant too narrowly. This matters because the authorities need a warrant, which requires no prior notice of seizure, to get hold of unopened e-mails less than six months old. For older or opened e-mails, they need only a subpoena, a notice demanding that certain items be presented in court. The original judge agreed, saying that a warrant under the relevant law—the Stored Communications Act (SCA)—was a “hybrid” of a search warrant and a subpoena. In that case, Microsoft retorts, why did Congress bother to distinguish between a warrant and a subpoena when it drew up the law?
政府认为，更重要的是，微软对搜查令的定义太过狭隘。这很重要，因为政府需要使搜查令无需事先通知就能没收证据，以得到六个月内还未阅读的电子邮件。而要获取超过6个月的或已阅的电子邮件，他们仅需要发出一张传票—一个要求将相关条目呈上法庭的通知。原告法官认同说，涉及相关法律—存储通讯法的搜查令，是一种搜查令和传票的混合体。在这种情况下，微软反驳说，在制定法律的时候，为什么国会要如此麻烦的区分搜查令和传票？
Commerce as well as principle explains Microsoft's nitpicking—and the supporting briefs that other American tech firms have filed in the case. If foreigners fear their data are not safe from Uncle Sam's prying eyes in an American-owned data centre, they may turn to domestic providers, at American companies' expense. Such worries have grown since Edward Snowden's leaks of American spooks' activities last year. The tech firms may also hope a long court battle will prompt Congress to update the SCA. The law dates from 1986, when few imagined the internet's borderless realm.
商业以及原则解释了微软的找茬和对于其他美国科技公司牵扯进此案的简短的拥护声明。如果国外用户担心他们储存在美国所属的数据中心的数据，在美国政府的窥探下不安全，他们也许会转向本国的供应商而让美国公司付出代价。自从爱德华.斯诺登去年泄露了美国的间谍活动，这样的担心就日渐增长。高科技公司也许同样会希望一场法庭上持久战将会促使国会改进存储通讯法案。这一法案可追溯到1986年，那时没有人会想象到互联网会发展到无国界的境界。
