Email accounts offshore and safe from U.S. prying eyes - Page 3

Tsunami · 13 Oct 2011, 11:27 PM

Which IMO is injustice. A court order is a court order. Maybe I'm naive again believing nobody would be monitored without being suspect of crimes first, but in some cases the court's inability to function properly because someone (= can be an ISP, any internet service or a real person) refuses to cooperate can have dramatic consequences.

Obviously, this doesn't mean the court should just collect info per default, this should be reserved for trying to prevent victims from crimes by monitoring only those who are a suspect. If that is no longer allowed, that's just as bad as when everyone is surveilled even those who are law-abiding.

And yes, the EU obliges ISPs to keep a record of all emails sent where the subject line, sender and receiver are stored. The content of the message however, is not stored (or at least, the EU law does not request that)

zimmermanfan · 14 Oct 2011, 01:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tsunami

A court order is a court order.

A Russian court order in Australia is not a court order, for example -- it's just a piece of paper that might as well be blank. Why would the residents of one country recognize the authority of a foreign government? I couldn't read the article, but I suspect Yahoo doesn't have any servers in Belgium. AFAIK, that's the only way for Belgium's orders to be unrecognized.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dutchie007

At last yahoo seems safe for "preaying eyes"from the belgian authorities;-)

http://www.express.be/sectors/nl/ict...cht/154236.htm

The article is in Dutch and says that yahoo doesn't need to give information to the Belgian court.

D

That's interesting, but I would be careful not to conclude that Yahoo respects civil liberties. See the email provider privacy comparison. Yahoo voluntarily disclosed to the China the identity of someone discussing democracy, leading to his incarceration.

Tsunami · 14 Oct 2011, 06:19 AM

While what you say is true, the internet is heavily globalised. If that's a good thing is up for debate, a eertain international cooperation has to exist just like cross-border police and international laws exist. To what extent this should be is the big question and it's difficult to draw the line what's acceptable or not.

Yahoo, as far as I recall, was either forced to withdraw from the Chinese market or to obey local laws. If Yahoo did not obey these laws, probably the site would have been barred from the Chinese internet audience. They made their choice and it's up to people using Yahoo weither they find this choice acceptable or weither they wish to cancel their account as a way of protest. If you want to deal with China, you know the local laws, so Yahoo had to make a choice to respect those laws or risk to be banned from Chinese users. I think the amount of users they were gaining in China was always going to be higher than the number of people resigning as protest ; again it's up to personal opinions weither the decision of Yahoo is understandable or scandalous. I wonder weither many users actually did indeed ditch Yahoo as a sign of protest ; it'd be an interesting statistic.

Of course we can go on about this and ask what civil liberties should include, where the line should be drawn, weither the web should be a parallel world with full anonimity, ... Which would be very interesting food for thought but impossible to debate this without violating the non politics rule of the forum. (in a way, given the many posters clearly concerned about such issues, it's odd no parallel forum has been chosen for those forum members who wish to discuss politics while respecting the rules of EMD by doing leading discussions elsewhere)

13 Oct 2011, 11:27 PM	#31
Tsunami The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 2,341	Which IMO is injustice. A court order is a court order. Maybe I'm naive again believing nobody would be monitored without being suspect of crimes first, but in some cases the court's inability to function properly because someone (= can be an ISP, any internet service or a real person) refuses to cooperate can have dramatic consequences. Obviously, this doesn't mean the court should just collect info per default, this should be reserved for trying to prevent victims from crimes by monitoring only those who are a suspect. If that is no longer allowed, that's just as bad as when everyone is surveilled even those who are law-abiding. And yes, the EU obliges ISPs to keep a record of all emails sent where the subject line, sender and receiver are stored. The content of the message however, is not stored (or at least, the EU law does not request that)

14 Oct 2011, 06:19 AM	#33
Tsunami The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 2,341	While what you say is true, the internet is heavily globalised. If that's a good thing is up for debate, a eertain international cooperation has to exist just like cross-border police and international laws exist. To what extent this should be is the big question and it's difficult to draw the line what's acceptable or not. Yahoo, as far as I recall, was either forced to withdraw from the Chinese market or to obey local laws. If Yahoo did not obey these laws, probably the site would have been barred from the Chinese internet audience. They made their choice and it's up to people using Yahoo weither they find this choice acceptable or weither they wish to cancel their account as a way of protest. If you want to deal with China, you know the local laws, so Yahoo had to make a choice to respect those laws or risk to be banned from Chinese users. I think the amount of users they were gaining in China was always going to be higher than the number of people resigning as protest ; again it's up to personal opinions weither the decision of Yahoo is understandable or scandalous. I wonder weither many users actually did indeed ditch Yahoo as a sign of protest ; it'd be an interesting statistic. Of course we can go on about this and ask what civil liberties should include, where the line should be drawn, weither the web should be a parallel world with full anonimity, ... Which would be very interesting food for thought but impossible to debate this without violating the non politics rule of the forum. (in a way, given the many posters clearly concerned about such issues, it's odd no parallel forum has been chosen for those forum members who wish to discuss politics while respecting the rules of EMD by doing leading discussions elsewhere)