Kurt Shintaku's Blog

The U.S. State Department released on 12/4/12 a document to help dispel common misperceptions about the Patriot Act.

The ability of cloud consumers to exploit the full value of cloud innovation has been increasingly threatened over the last year by misplaced assertions that use of cloud services provided by a company subject to the U.S. legal process will routinely expose customer data to seizure by U.S. law enforcement authorities. As this controversy jeopardizes opportunities on both sides of the Atlantic and around the world for needed economic and employment growth, the record needs to be set straight.

This document dispels these myths and discusses certain aspects of U.S. laws that are often mischaracterized abroad, and that discourage citizens of other countries from storing their data with U.S. cloud providers.

• WHITEPAPER:  Five Myths Regarding Privacy and Law Enforcement – October 9, 2012
  http://photos.state.gov/libraries/useu/231771/PDFs/Five%20Myths%20Regarding%20Privacy%20and%20Law%20Enforcement_October%209_2012_pdf.pdf

In addition, the State Department has created a useful webpage that compiles resources related to data privacy and law enforcement concerns. The page includes copies of several recent speeches made by U.S. officials and summary materials and links related to specific subject matters.

The page is: http://useu.usmission.gov/data_privacy.html.