Law Enforcement Access to Data across Borders: The Evolving Security and Rights Issues

Abstract

complicated jurisdictional, privacy, and security questions that have arisen.This article seeks to add to this nascent, yet growing literature.Its aims are three-fold: to provide the key background, to highlight the need for action, and to suggest a way forward.A caveat up front: the article is U.S.-centric, and is so for a reason.While the problem of cross-border access to data is inherently international, the United States has an outsized role to play, given a combination of the U.S.-based provider dominance of the market, blocking provisions in U.S. law that prohibit the production of the content of electronic communications (such as emails) to foreign-based law enforcement, and the particular ways that companies are interpreting and applying their legal obligations.The approach taken by the United States is likely to become a model for others, thus providing the United States a unique opportunity to set the standards-standards that ideally will protect privacy, security, and the growth of an open and global Internet.The 2.