On Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a petition seeking the Supreme Court to consider an ongoing legal case about access to data stored overseas.  But the courts are powerless to craft a balanced policy for law enforcement access to data stored abroad.  Only Congress can do it.

Those of you who read SIIA blogs, statements, and testimony know that we are big proponents of data-driven innovation.  For such innovation to achieve its full potential, cross-border data flows are essential.  That is why we support Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) digital provisions so strongly and consider them a floor for additional digital provisions in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and Trade in Services Agreement (TISA).  We support interoperability mechanisms such as the EU-US Privacy Shield that allow companies to transfer data from one jurisdiction to another as long as they comply with the rules established in the mechanism.  This has nothing to do with undermining societal values such as privacy and everything to do with creating law-based data transfer mechanisms as we demonstrated at an October 9, 2015 Geneva event for TISA negotiators.  We are strong supporters of the EU-US Privacy Shield because it has the potential, ...

The Thursday November 5 release of the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) agreement text shows that the 11 negotiating countries got the data flow provisions right. The 21st century electronic commerce chapter provisions will benefit many sectors beyond the software and information industries that SIIA represents.