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Iowa Leadership Supports Legislation That Opens Foreign-Stored Data Access

Iowa Attorney General, Tom Miller, has joined 35 other attorneys general in urging Congress to clarify how U.S. law enforcement pursuing criminal investigations can access electronic data stored overseas. The group is urging Congress to pass the Clarify Lawful Overseas Use of Data, or CLOUD Act, that would update and amend several provisions of the Stored Communications Act (SCA). Under the SCA, a law enforcement agency may obtain a warrant to search a person’s email or online account if a court finds probable cause that the account contains evidence of a crime. These warrants are often requested to investigate crimes ranging from drug trafficking and murder to child sexual exploitation. Recently, however, some service providers have argued that the courts cannot enforce an SCA warrant when the data is stored on a foreign server, even if the provider and customer who created the data are in the U.S. The CLOUD Act is an important step toward resolving this dispute as it both confirms law enforcement’s ability to obtain probable-cause based warrants for electronic communications stored abroad and creates a clear avenue for service providers challenging an SCA warrant that targets a foreign person and would require a provider to violate foreign law. The act will also create incentives for our foreign partners to ensure privacy and civil liberties are respected.

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