Re: provided they get a US judge to approve a subpoena
Yes, technically. There is a token requirement for foreign government permission. However, if any data is held on any U.S. company (Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter), the U.S. government can have it with a court order. By the way, evidence shows that they can get rubber stamp orders from courts like the FISC if they want them. As for foreign governments helping out the course of privacy if you are lucky enough to store your data on a system that really has no American company involvement, most countries won't care so much about it. In fact, you are most likely to be safe if you store your private data in a country that respects your privacy because it doesn't give its citizens any. I bet anyone storing their data on Chinese-based servers is safe. From that specific thing. And significantly more at risk for a lot of other things but let's not think about that.
I doubt that countries within the U.S. bubble will object like they should. Not only do they probably want the data on their own citizens, but the last thing they will want to do is to annoy the U.S. They dislike Trump, and I don't trust his administration to do anything good with the data, but we shouldn't forget that the Obama administration wasn't any more supportive to citizen privacy, having wholeheartedly supported the NSA slurp throughout. Whether you trusted them more, as I did, doesn't change the fact that politicians have a long history of not caring about your privacy.
Anyone know a cure for cynicism?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
