You presume that a reader of the word "discounting" in thsi context doesn't infer "legality".
The big questions here are simple.
1. If any organization holds your data, is it still your data, or have you surrendered ownership of it?
2. Is there a concept of ownership for record-oriented data, captured by a third party?
If you store a copy of a screenplay you're writing in the cloud, you haven't surrendered ownership of it. The cloud provider cannot just copy your data and hand it to someone else, who now has ownership of it.
Let's say you are generating a novel by writing short paragraphs, which are then recorded by your cloud provider as records -- time and content. The contents of the fields are created by you. Can the cloud provider simply provide a copy of that data to anyone who asks?
There's not much difference between a phone call record and my time-content example. Most (all?) fields in a call record are generated as a result of the user, who is more or less the author. And as the author of the information in those phone records, do you hold the copyright?
This isn't AT&T's data. It's my data, or your data. When press the dial button, we are creating these fields of data. It is an act of creation. We expect that AT&T will use this data to bill us (and we find that acceptable). We do not, for example, expect AT&T to sell our call records to some company, for marketing purposes. If the data is owned by AT&T, then they would be perfectly free to do that.
There's a pretty simple principle that could be followed: If the cloud provider or telecom company wouldn't grant access to the information to any member of the general public, access shouldn't be granted to law enforcement without a warrant or review of some kind. If the government can convince a judge that access is warranted, then go for it.
To do otherwise creates an environment where it's far too easy to harass or pressure "regular" people.
The big questions here are simple.
1. If any organization holds your data, is it still your data, or have you surrendered ownership of it?
2. Is there a concept of ownership for record-oriented data, captured by a third party?
If you store a copy of a screenplay you're writing in the cloud, you haven't surrendered ownership of it. The cloud provider cannot just copy your data and hand it to someone else, who now has ownership of it.
Let's say you are generating a novel by writing short paragraphs, which are then recorded by your cloud provider as records -- time and content. The contents of the fields are created by you. Can the cloud provider simply provide a copy of that data to anyone who asks?
There's not much difference between a phone call record and my time-content example. Most (all?) fields in a call record are generated as a result of the user, who is more or less the author. And as the author of the information in those phone records, do you hold the copyright?
This isn't AT&T's data. It's my data, or your data. When press the dial button, we are creating these fields of data. It is an act of creation. We expect that AT&T will use this data to bill us (and we find that acceptable). We do not, for example, expect AT&T to sell our call records to some company, for marketing purposes. If the data is owned by AT&T, then they would be perfectly free to do that.
There's a pretty simple principle that could be followed: If the cloud provider or telecom company wouldn't grant access to the information to any member of the general public, access shouldn't be granted to law enforcement without a warrant or review of some kind. If the government can convince a judge that access is warranted, then go for it.
To do otherwise creates an environment where it's far too easy to harass or pressure "regular" people.