Review the facts, and the arguments of each party in the case.
The issue is: was Micros
50 U N IT 1 The Legal Environment discordnot to mention danger for US. citizens if other countries responded by subieeting them to foreign laws. In our modern world, sometimes borders are irrelevant. Or are they? What should happen when the government wants access to information on a foreign server? You make the call. Y u Beth Judge Facts: The Stored Communications Act (SCA) prohibits the government from accessing a user's electronic files without a warrant. But because Congress passed the stat ute in \"Bobefore the widespread use of the inbernetiit did not specically state whether or not the statute applied overseas. Microsoft operates Outloolt.com, a free webbased email service. When Microsoft customers send and receive Outlook emails, the company stores the emails on a net- work of servers housed in datacenters in over 40 countries. Microsoft's system automatically determines which data- center will store emails based on the user's self-reported country code. Once the data transfer is complete, Microsoft deletes all information associated with the account from its U.S.-hased servers. A federal judge issued an SCA warrant ordering Microsoft to disclose the contents of a particular user's email account. Because those emails were located in its Dublin dataeenter, Microsoft refused to comply, arguing that the SCA did not apply to data housed abroad. EXAMStrategy You Be the JudgmiDaer the SCA authorize M: US. gawmmmt to obtain bifommwrfmm fnmr'gw servant? Argument for Microsoft: Your honors, the presump tion against extraterritorial application of U.S. statutes is strong: Unless Congress specifically states that a statute applies overseas, courts must presume that it does not. The information sought in this case is stored in Dublin. Enforcing the warrant would be an unlawful application of the SCA and an intrusion on the privacy nfMicrosoft's customer. Argument for the Government: Nothing in the SCA's text. structure, purpose, or history indicates that Congress wanted to limit rollers electronic records could be seized. Preventing SCA warrants from reaching foreign servers would seriously impede U.S. law enforcement efforts. A wrongdoer could easily shield illegal content from the police just by reporting a different country codea result that the SCA could not have intended. Qpestion: US. citizens Alberto Vilar and Gary Tamika managed $9 billion in investments through their companies, some of which were located in Panama. The two were arrested in the United States for a massive securities fraud: They had lied to their clients about investments~and used some of the money entrusted to them to repair their homes and buy horses. Vilar and Tan-aka claimed that U.S. securities laws did not apply to sales that occurred outside the country. These laws were silent as to their application abroad. Do Vilar and Tanaka have a valid argument
