U.S. Proposes Allowing Foreign Officials to Serve Warrants on Internet Firms | Hacker News Reader

U.S. Proposes Allowing Foreign Officials to Serve Warrants on Internet Firms

wsj.com

141 pointshodgesrm119 comments

Sue in a corrupt jurisidiction to read enemies email?

Accidentally violate a privacy 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.

> Crypto please save us.

Working on it.

https://sc4.us

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

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

Free side channel attacks.

The SC4-HSM is user-programmable, and it has a display, which offers security benefits. See the FAQ for details.

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.

And with this kind of deal being done with the UK first, there's even more of a reason for tech companies to leave the UK (after Brexit, and soon the passage of the IPBill, which will also make it possible for the UK government to "demand decryption", among other things).

Are you saying e.g. Facebook would move their management and core development team to like Guatemala or something because of this?

Why would they have to do that? They would just have to keep the data in a country that won't be part this new legal framework.

As the article says, these plans were announced after Microsoft won a court case to prevent the US government from searching Microsoft's servers located overseas. The government's solution to this is to honor foreign warrants to search US servers, so that foreign governments will reciprocally honor US warrants to search foreign servers. This will enable the US government to get data from Microsoft's servers if they are located in any country which is part of this agreement.

So, just find a country that isn't part of this agreement, and is not likely to become part of it, and keep the data there. Amazon could open a few AWS datacenters in such countries and make a lot of money.

And then Panama Leaks happen.

We live in a new age. With Panama leaks we have whistle blowers who haven't got stuck in jail or in exile.

People and corps can't play the old games.

What makes you think there would need to be any secrecy involved in offshoring data?

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

Updated nothing, that sounds like Cryptonomicon's fictional Sultanate of Kinakuta.

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

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

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.

The Vault!

Well, that's the stopgap, for sure.

But recall that the US took down Liberty Reserve in Costa Rica, and that Russia does sometimes cooperate with the US on cybercrime.

Long term, what we need are distributed safe havens that can't be localized or taken down.

    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?

> 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?

Perhaps since this practice got exposed, other countries became less willing to cooperate. With such a treaty in place it will be more difficult to say no.

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.

In fact, those words are not in our constitution but in the Declaration of Independence, which is not a legally binding document.

The Bill of Rights, which is law, doesn't talk about "all men" (neither does the Constitution) but says things like "Congress shall make no law..." or "No warrant shall issue...", and says nothing about " all men".

In the case of terrorism executions specifically the justification given is that they are an act of war.

Not legally binding! I think Great Britain thought it was binding - a war was fought over it. Its a founding document of our country, and lays out all the moral principles our Constitution is based upon. It illuminates and explains what those fine words in the Constitution are meant to mean. As such it has been referred to in legal proceedings for centuries.

The war was well under way prior to the Declaration being drafted and signed. 1775.

I understand "war" has a different set of rules, but, historically, those rules have applied to specific circumstances of engagement. Targets were well known and understood.

In a "war" where every person on the planet is a potential enemy, these rules should not be applied, otherwise all someone has to say is "terrorist!" and poof, there go your rights...wait, that's exactly what's happening!

Capturing and trying a person who is actively shooting at you is not practical.

But the style of executions that the US and allies are engaging in has much more in common with law enforcement than "war" -- they receive a "tip" or as a product of their investigations, come across "information" that person X is engaging in terrorism activities. Person X is not permitted to present evidence to the contrary. They are not permitted to present a rebuttal to the claims. There is not even a check or balance on the assertions to Person X's activities. An assessment is made, strike ordered, and Person X, and anyone within a 100ft radius of them, are summarily judged and executed.

The laws proposed are not limited to only "terrorists" -- and there is a long history of the US failing to apply any sort of constitutional protections to any second-class human being. How someone can claim that the protections of the Constitution(or the ideas presented in the Declaration of Independence) are morally self-evident, but yet, somehow only apply to a US Citizen, presents two assertions that are in conflict.

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.

Yep...rights to women as well.

So historically "all men" and the "rights endowed by their creator" has always been loosely interpreted to fit the ideals and requirements of the leaders at that time.

Which is morally wrong.

3/5 compromise was intended to weaken the institution of slavery. The south would have been happy to count slaves as 2x human.

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.

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.

Extradition treaties or agreements.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition

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.

Could it possibly work the same way asset forfeiture works? Sue the property, not the owner. Extradite the server, not the owner?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Courts apply the law, the political branches, through legislation and treaties, among other means, make the law that courts apply.

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

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.

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...

While I certainly hope we keep peace with each other, but I think what people want is for it to be easy to choose which sort of government they live under, but what we get is other governments "forcing" our government to do things our country doesn't want.

(I put "forcing" in quotes because quite often it's more of an excuse than a reason.)

Reminds me of the "Archipelago" idea Scott Alexander used to play with[0] - the concept that takes the assumption that people, given freedom of association, eventually form into groups they feel good in, and follows it to a logical extreme. You'd have a word formed into "countries" and a central body that basically enforces two rules: 1) no aggressive actions of one country against another, and 2) freedom of movement for all - so if you don't like your group, you can migrate freely to a different one. There are some caveats in that thought experiment, but it does strongly resemble what you said - that "what people want is for it to be easy to choose which sort of government they live under".

[0] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/07/archipelago-and-atomic-...

This. Perspective is important, especially in light of recent events in Europe.

so, the price for peace is to further the international 1% and give up democracy in exchange for plutocracy?

I'm pretty sure that the massive presence of American troops in Europe (which amazingly outnumber all European troops combined) and nuclear deterrents are what's keeping the peace.

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

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"

Something about horseshoes and hand grenades.

I'm not sure what you mean. Could you elaborate? I could only find references to a song, a musical band and a videogame.

EDIT: I guess you mean the phrase "Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades"?

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.

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.

Maybe, and I appreciate the argument 'fapjacks brought forward downthread, but then again - psychopaths exist too and if one's to believe recent reports, the US military kind doesn't pay as much attention as it should anymore to vetting and training people who are working with nuclear weapons. By extension, I doubt situation in Russia or other nuclear powers is any better.

Even ignoring psychopaths, I have my pet theory too. It goes like this: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to be separated from it by enough layers of abstraction". So for instance, the moment some military decides to automate away people in the silos I'll start being very scared.

Right. The presence of 400,000 U.S. troops during the Cold War might also have had something to do with it.

You act like WWIII isn't inevitable but for other reasons. The fear of nationalism thanks to WWII has caused the pendulum to swing way too far in the other direction.

And it's okay to call it "globalism" like everyone else does.

It's a scary thought - one that I end up thinking more and more often. It seems that while memories of WWII were fresh in Europe, and the destruction still clearly visible, people were very much into peace and cooperation. But now, with new generations for which WWII is a story told by dying or dead grandparents, who were born into wealthy world and take it as a given - not realizing how much work of several past generations it took to build it anew after the World Wars - I fear we'll be facing another huge conflict here in Europe in the coming decades.

Liberal democracies can have political conflict, but never in history have they gone to war.

There's first time for everything. I don't see anything in liberal democracies that would make them unable to wage a war. Not to mention that regimes change, and their names even more often. Today it's a democracy, tomorrow it gets called fascist, day after tomorrow it goes to war.

But it's never happened - let's hope it never does

Odd that right now we're living in an era where the "liberals" have become intolerant and aggressive, criminal war hawks as well as enablers for criminal activity. It might be time we started qualifying what liberal really means anymore.

I said "liberal democracy" which has a specific meaning and identifies specific countries

Internationalism has become the you cannot escape the state no matter where you reside. either because you pissed off some politician over tax or spying issues.

a land war hasn't occurred in Europe simply because the US and the USSR stalemated each other. Once the USSR ceased to be trade had a tendency to convince people having stuff was fun.

There are different flavours.

There's the League of Nations / United Nations model, which tends to be fairly constructive.

There's the "citizen of the world" / cosmopolitan model, which has tended to have egalitarian and idealistic overtones.

There's the Mont Pelerin Society / Atlas Network "Free Trade / Invisible Hand" globalisation model, which seeks benefits for transnational corporations and the plutocracy, without any safety nets or provisions for the mass of the world's population. This viewpoint is strongly adopted among many who align as "right", contrasted with left. Generally, neoliberalism. See Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, George Monbiot, Naomi Oreskes, or Bill McKibben as among its critics.

The populist conservative mode of xenophobic / nonalignment / isolationist tendencies is another element, and among the few which are specifically opposed to international engagement. It's hardly specific to any one nation -- you'll find it expressed among the populist conservative factions of the UK, France, Germany, much of the Islam world, Japan, Russia, and the United States, just off the top of my head.

This.

Obviously having massive troop presence prevented war with the soviets, but it can't be overestimated what stuff like the European Coal and Steel Community, the EEC and other following integration steps did after WWII in terms of getting France and Germany to "need" each other, instead of wanting "revenge" and repayment.

Revenge is an excuse to get citizens whipped up for the wars the governments already want. The problem with Europe is the concentration of powerful and aggressive nations jockeying for advantage. The world wars were just the latest examples of cyclic major wars in Europe, exacerbated by the empires many of those countries still had.

The EEC and the EU haven't kept Europe from having another two or three major wars since the fall of Nazi Germany. (Whether they could have started more world wars after the end of their empires is less clear). Outside powers imposing alliances that prevented the usual suspects from going to war with each other kept this from happening. Today, NATO keeps this from happening.

I suggest you read up on stuff like the European Coal and Steel Community and the Schuman Declaration.

Some of their implicit goals were harmonising French and German interests so they wouldn't want to go to war again.

I suggest you read up on stuff like the League of Nations.

What are the two or three wars you speak of? There have of course been wars in Europe outside the EU (the former Yugoslavia and various wars in the former Soviet states), but within the EU or even involving a EU member?

The closest I know of is the Cyprus conflict in 1974, but Greece wasn't an EU member then.

You might reread the post you're responding to, more closely.

The EEC and the EU haven't kept Europe from having another two or three major wars since the fall of Nazi Germany.

What are the two of three major wars which they have had? (Quite puzzled, as I have studied this a little).

>> Outside powers imposing alliances that prevented the usual suspects from going to war with each other kept this from happening.

He isn't saying those wars happened. He is saying the preventive cause is other then the EEC and the EU.

Correct. He's asking me to defend a claim completely opposite from what I actually said.

There's still war being waged, but it's being done using lawyers and banks rather than troops and tanks.

Are you trying to use the thought of world war to scare people into accepting absurd IP law bureaucracy?

Yes, that's the argument.

Absolutely. Neither you, nor I, nor anyone reading this has ever lived through anything even remotely approaching the sort of privations that were routinely experienced by people everywhere in every century up until the last. "IP law bureaucracy" pales in comparison. Again, I say this not as someone with any sort of firsthand knowledge, but simply as a student of history.

Absolutely disgusting.

The feeling is mutual.

Citation needed. Quite a limb to claim that internationalism is the lone reason that Europe hasn't imploded again.

Completely depleted economies[1], a general anti-war movement, a cold war + nuclear weapons surely mean there is no credit left for "internationalism".

1) barring the US' selective rebuilding of the West German economy after the war.

There are two (or more) dimensions around these issues:

(1) is being open to commerce and immigration for law-abiding entrants, and nurturing friendships with other nations while respecting their sovereignty. This is considered a good thing by moral standards and economic theory. Also the George Washington school of though: "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none"

(2) is starting with closed borders to the detriment of a country's citizens but giving more power to leaders and creating a system of favors and alliances, interventionism, adventurism etc. this is what create wars in the first place. Let's call it the Trump school of thought.

Looks like this kind of deal is more (2): giving up sovereignty though alliances, for no benefit to the common citizen, but increased power for the powers at play.

It's amusing that you've somehow attached Trump to a bunch of positions that range from things he's never said to things he's said the exact opposite of. Looks like he's the boogeyman of the year.

If you judge Trump by what he says, you're in for a big surprise.

It is true he claim to be non-interventionist, but on the other hand he nurtures antagonization, so what good does it do if he ends up forcing interventions through provocations?

He has also openly proposed creating systems/actions on trade that correspond to (2) (e.g. comments on Ford).

It's pretty much a given that any Republican candidate is going to be HITLER!!! in the eyes of the opposition. Reagan was HITLER!!!, Bush I was HITLER!!!, Bush II was HITLER!!!, heck, even a mild-mannered nebbish like Mitt Romney got the HITLER!!! treatment.

Given that, as far as I know, none of the above ever launched a global war of domination, nor murdered millions of people for belonging to a specific ethnicity, I'm pretty sure that none of those guys were Hitler.

The problem is that the opposition has cried Hitler so many times that no one (other than their fellow rabid partisans) pays the slightest bit of attention any more. Certainly I don't. Nor does Donald Trump. A nice guy like Mitt Romney gets upset when people call him a Nazi and tries to prove that he isn't one. Trump doesn't give a shit. He's the honey badger of candidates.

That's going to suck pretty bad if an actual Hitler ever comes along. I think there's some kind of old fable about that, isn't there?

Note: I do not like Donald Trump and am not planning on voting for him. I expect him to win handily, though, so we'd better hope he's not, you know, actually Hitler.

>A nice guy like Mitt Romney gets upset when people call him a Nazi and tries to prove that he isn't one.

You took it a bridge too far - I don't recall many people actually calling Mitt Romney anything like a Nazi. He was accused of being a wealthy elitist and vicious corporate capitalist who openly despised the poor and was so out of touch with humanity that he had his emotions simulated by an algorithm. But not "Literally Hitler."

"I don't recall many people actually calling Mitt Romney anything like a Nazi. "

Your memory is selective. Romney was called a Nazi (or compared to one) by actual Democrat Party officials. Ryan was compared to Goebbels. Nikki Haley was compared to Eva Braun. Romney wasted a bunch of time demanding apologies, etc.

It doesn't matter -- as I said, no one pays attention to it anymore, really, and Trump, at least, understands that.

I remember calling Mitt Romney a Nazi. I've unjustly called many people Nazis, not because anything they said resembled National Socialism, but merely because it's an easy way to pull on peoples' emotional strings.

Fair enough I guess.

> Note: I do not like Donald Trump and am not planning on voting for him. I expect him to win handily, though, so we'd better hope he's not, you know, actually Hitler.

Trump is more of a William Jennings Bryan or (at worst) an Andrew Jackson. And likewise, it'd be best if Hillary proved not to be an Evita Peron.

There is no scenario where people move freely between countries but governments decide warrants shouldn't be able to follow them. There is no scenario where countries cooperate but decide not to impose their preferences and viewpoints on each other.

It seems there should be a strict ordering here though. Why yield official privileges to country X that your own plebs can't even enter without inquisition-level interrogation?

There is police cooperation in Schengen countries because yeah, you can pretty much just stroll over the border. But the timing was open borders, then interpol.

What you are saying is of course true. However, I believe we also are getting the worst of both worlds right now. The state of the EU is a good example of this. On one hand more and more things are regulated on an international level. In the case of the EU these decisions are being made by representatives who were in many cases indirectly elected. If we had something like a European president people would have a much better, direct way choosing what and whom they want. It also would give a platform for previous representatives to point out what good they actually accomplished. During the Brexit I heard that large parts of the nature conservation program Natural England is funded by the EU. Yet no one knows, because it's in nobody's interest to point these things out. Local politicians will either not talk about it or pretend they did it. EU politicians have almost no media platform. A direct election would change that. We might benefit from similar institutions on a UN level or similar as well as more and more decisions are being made at those levels.

Funny thing, your comment reminds me of a reflection I had some time ago - that EU should IMO invest much more into propaganda. Not to paper over its deficiencies, but because people invent anti-EU messages on their own accord, and it dominates the conversation. Similarly with Natural England program you mentioned, EU is doing good work in many other places too - but people don't know it, because nobody cares to highlight it. So it feels EU is all about bureaucracy and creating another USSR - because that's the only thing people are talking about.

(It pisses me off in my country in particular, because a lot of people complain about paying to EU not realizing that we're still a net beneficiary, and just how much infrastructure around them was built or upgraded by EU money. The playgrounds they take their kids to. The roads and bridges they drive over. I mean, given how much money our local "entrepreneurs" steal from EU grants all the time, people should be at least a little bit grateful.)

I think investing in "propaganda" would be a good start. However, we don't need to do that for any other part of the government which really is a smell.

Private organizations cooperating across borders is what's driving this.

The internet is rather borderless in nature though.

Amazing. The western world was all pro "internationalism" when it came to exploiting the east and Africa (centuries of colonialism), but now, want to go back into their shells.

Can't have it both ways.

You are confusing colonialism with internationalism. They're not really related concepts.

No he isn't, the trade deals which allowed near slave labor in SE Asia and exploiting for natural resources in Africa (by foreign actors) is from the same economic doctrine that allows sweatshops in Mexico (NAFTA) and will be the same ideology that passes TPP.

You haven't actually studied mercantilism much, have you?

No, they were not the "same economic doctrine", or anything like it.

Near slave labor exists in SE Asia because the national governments in that part of the world are willing to tolerate it. There are plenty of countries with free trade agreements that don't have poor working conditions. Near slavery is not a necessary consequence of trade deals -- it is a consequence of bad government. It existed long before free trade agreements.

Similarly, resource exploitation occurs in countries whose governments are willing to allow their resources to be exploited. It happened hundreds of years before any free trade agreements were signed, and it will continue to happen until those governments change their practices.

What about Opium wars?

One country using military force to coerce another country into trading with them does not constitute a free trade agreement. Free trade agreements are consensual.

And how any of those countries wanting to change their practices have the CIA distributed a few well-placed bullets or coups in? Ever heard of Jacobo Arbenz? Or watched Syriana?

> "The western world was all pro "internationalism" when it came to exploiting the east and Africa (centuries of colonialism), but now, want to go back into their shells."

The "western world" is not a person. "The western world" does not have opinions. The people who make up the western world have read about Colonialism in textbooks, and they've been taught it was terrible. Why should these people want to be victims of it?

> "Can't have it both ways."

As frustrating as you may consider apparent inconsistency and hypocrisy to be, I think you'll find that there is no law of the universe that actually prevents it.

>The "western world" is not a person. "The western world" does not have opinions. The people who make up the western world have read about Colonialism in textbooks, and they've been taught it was terrible. Why should these people want to be victims of it?

What do you think of affirmative action?

> I think you'll find that there is no law of the universe that actually prevents it.

I meant that as a moral statement. As in "you shouldn't do something bad." There is no universal preventing it.

Why do you wonder what I think about affirmative action?

>"you shouldn't"

Why shouldn't Americans enact trade policy that is best for Americans?

> Why do you wonder what I think about affirmative action?

Reread your own comment and think about it :)

> Why shouldn't Americans enact trade policy that is best for Americans?

Because Americans have forced others to act against their own self-interests. Read about opening of Japan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Expedition#Threat_of_for...

If everyone does that, the world will turn shitty quite soon.

For governments. For individuals wishing to immigrate, not so much.

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

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

That's probably the end-goal.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-usa-warrant-idUS...

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.

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.

http://archive.is/nfHk2 without paywall

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