For years, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)  has been seeking an administrative agency exception that would enable it to use a subpoena to access email content stored remotely by third parties.  But under current legal precedent, per a 2010 Sixth Circuit decision, United States v. Warshak, it has been precedent that this material should only be accessible with a search warrant. The SEC continues to seek expanded authority, and they question the application of this warrant requirement to civil agencies.  In February, they issued a subpoena to Yahoo to access a user’s email, where the account was owned by a defendant in a securities fraud case.  Yahoo has rightly challenged this action, and the case, Securities and Exchange Commission v. North Star Finance LLC, represents a landmark dispute regarding the government efforts to obtain email content in a civil case with just a subpoena to an email service provider. Unlike a warrant based upon pro ...

Today, the EU and Japan announced political agreement in principle on an Economic Partnership Agreement.  Overall, this should be a positive development for EU and Japanese workers, consumers, and businesses.  But, it does fall short in one crucial regard.  There is no binding data flow obligation yet.  SIIA put out a statement on this gap today.  Instead of a binding data flow commitment now, the two sides agreed to conclude an accord on data flows in early 2018. 

The European Parliament’s Pilar del Castillo led a February 17, 2016 breakfast debate on the economic and trade impacts of data flows.  The event was organized under the auspices of the European Internet Forum with SIIA serving as the industry lead organizer.   The speakers emphasized the following elements in the data flow debate.   Data flows matter to what might be considered traditional industrial enterprises as much as they matter to “technology” sector companies.  The EU has offensive digital trade goals – the recently concluded EU-U.S. Privacy Shield might make it easier for the Commission to pursue those goals in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) negotiations.  Common cooperative regulatory mechanisms need to be created in order ensure that data flows can continue to underpin global value chains (GVCs).  Europe-wide initiatives such as the Single Paymen ...