Warrant for content in all cases, it tends to be things that you have to be able to get a search warrant to investigate. So that sort of drives a lot of it. But, you know, the data types and the data fields that are provided are sort of incumbent on what data there is in existence and how long its stored and what specifically they ask for. You know, we typically require them to be very specific in saying what types of data theyre seeking under a request. They cant just issue a search warrant and say give us soandsos data. They have to specify what fields and things they want. Both of you or both Companies Get quite a lot of requests for information for transactional data or activity logs or other kinds of subscriber information, so that takes up the bulk of the requests. Im wondering what those tend to look like and whether thats something that usually is fairly focused, or whether the number of accounts, obviously, are going to be larger than the number of requests to both companies, and so i wonder if thats general requests for a couple accounts, or do you occasionally see what one might consider egregious attempts to rope in a whole lot of people at once . Yeah. With the caveat that we can talk about what we did on the domestic side of things under eppa, you mentioned sort of the bulk of requests we receive tend to be transactional information. Its not particularly exotic. Its basically subscriber information that users provide to us, for example, when they sign up for a google account, so that could be name, gender, information like that, and thats the information that generally can be obtained under eppa with a subpoena. There is a specific percentage, somewhere in the neighborhood of 20, 25 that we tend to get that does ask for content in which case well ask for a search warrant. But its not, you know, generally speaking the type of information that we get is pretty run of the mill stuff that you tend to provide when you sign up for our services. If i could just actually build upon what i think greg and katie were alluding to before, because i want to be clear in terms of the civil agency side of things. A warrant for there is a perception that a warrant for content leaves the civil agencies without a remedy to do the sort of things that civil agencies do. In the case, for example, of the securities and exchange commission, the sec, to investigate and prosecute securities fraud. Typically speaking, in civil litigation, and i think nate was alluding to this before, when youre investigating someone or initiating litigation, youre going to serve a demand or Legal Process on the target of the investigation. So you wont be going to a Third Party Service provider. That is, generally speaking, how civil litigation works. So, you know, if there is a person thats being investigated, that theyre the target of an investigation and informations with is within the custody and control, theyll have a legal obligation to provide that information. To the extent theyre intransient, the sec has remedies to push the search warrant. They can be prevented from pursuing claims, there are all sorts of remedies that civil agencies have to sort of ensure that bad actors cant be perpetrating fraud sochlt i. So if we focus on how that happens, by providing end means to service providers, i think were missing the boat. But i also think there are other remedies, too, some of which exist under eppa, to the concern of destruction of evidence. You dont have to have any Legal Process at all to come to google or microsoft and serve a preservation request. That will freeze the account and ensure that any information that is destroyed isnt really permanently destroyed. And, look, a lot of the examples i think weve heard where this may actually end up being a problem where civil agencies dont have a warrant requirement tend to be sort of edge cases, and they tend to be framed in hypothetical or theoretical terms. There are actual examples of actual cases where these things tend to cause problems. You can imagine a situation where, you know, x person is doing y thing, but without sort of real world examples of how this is impacting civil agencies, its really difficult to crack a solution that would address the problems theyve been raising. We think they are adequate remedies under existing law, and thats why we think there should be a bright line for content standard. Going off of that again, were talking about criminal versus civil. On the criminal side, you have the probable cause warrant standard which would be used to go to the third party. I would also be notified as the target. On the civil side, there is no warrant authority, so you go directly to me as a target. Remember, this side over here, life, death, limb, children, women, all the scary words go over here. Money and white collar things and, i dont know, other kinds of fraud goes over here. So there are Emergency Exceptions for when someone is missing. There are Emergency Exceptions when someone is getting hurt. That is taken care of. And the Law Enforcement, domestic Law Enforcement, has agreed that that makes sense. But if we want to find out stuff about you like, i dont know, who is your affiliation as an organization when you file your taxes for status . Just read some emails. If you look at some of these things that this, having the ability to circumvent the target and subpoena the third party by civil agency, what kind of door that opens and what kind of authority that gives the executive branch. What kind of authority that gives an independent my favorite is the fcc, but maybe your favorite is the fda or the epa or maybe labor Consumer Protection bureau, i dont know. But this wouldnt apply to just one of these agencies, it would apply to all of them and not just federal ones, either. This would apply to state ones as well. So lets talk about local Law Enforcement that can read your email now. So were looking at if electronic communication privacy act reform that is in the house right now, the section about warrant for content that congressman hill was talking about. There is a bill straight up for content, there is a bill straight up for warrant in the senate. If there are changes, no, were not good to go. It becomes worse than what the law is right now. There are a kind of dizzying array of bills out there. Some are warrant for content. What bill or mix of bills do you guys see as moving the ball furthest . Which of the ones are the best prospects right now which are less likely to move . I think ill jump in on that. I think the ones with the best prospects are the ones that are straight up warrant for content right now. And the reason im saying that is because its a relatively simple concept, its been well debated on both sides. The House Judiciary Committee has had a couple hearings, though they havent yet moved a bill. The senate has had hearings and has moved a bill. But honestly, the other piece of data that i most want to protect, Location Information, its not yet right, particularly at this point in the calendar to have that kind of legislation moving. Too many hypos will come up. Its too hard to account for all the hypos that will come up and its just going to weigh things down. So if i had my druthers, it would be that the bill in the house has 220 cosponsors as katie was saying, straight up warrant for content, the bill advances. Its the counterpart. Its identical to the bill that went through the Senate Judiciary committee. Just to respond to one of the questions that was asked of representative poe, the question is youre doing email, what about all these other ways to communicate . You had asked the question . He covers those other ways to communicate. Because his bill goes to all content, and content is defined as substance, meaning or purport of a communication. So it doesnt matter kind of the electronic structure, if you will, its all content. Hes covering all of it. It would be a warrant required for all of it. You guys have this weird puzzle of saying is it a facebook message it functions cannotly li exactly like an email, does it matter if its a facebook message . No. One of the things that the thing i find particularly troubling is the growing popularity of what are called tower guns, where people dont want to say we have a suspect, we think he did the crime, we want to confirm he either was or wasnt or his cell phone was or wasnt at the scene, but rather, we have three robberies we think were committed by the same person. Give us every phone that was near each of those locations and well look for anyone who was at all three different places. Obviously, gathering huge amounts of information about a lot of peoples location in a way that obviously is not linked to a particular suspicion about any of them. Is that something that either of you are aware of having been attempted with respect to location data retained by google or microsoft . Im not aware. Im not aware. I dont mean to give you any ideas. Just kidding, dont do it. Obviously, theyre most concerned about content. There are a lot of ways in which, for example, lets say the irs which, until very recently, had in their manual a section saying, by the way, if youre investigating and you want to read a tax filers email, you can do so by subpoena. They finally agreed they shuc t shouldnt do that anymore. For a lot of things, whats your affiliation . Are Tea Party People having too much communication . A lot of this can be confirmed by metadata. If youre particularly concerned now that you see as, at least in some quantity, requiring some additional protection. So for me personally, and just speaking for myself as probably more as katie at digital liberty, i personally care much more about content and about location than i personally do about metadata at this point, because metadata is one of the checks Law Enforcement can use to be sure you turned over all the email that has been sent. So when they say dont get rid of anything, they can look at what the provider has and say, you deleted this from soandso and i need to see that. That kind of thing is important, especially when were talking about protecting content. Which, granted, its innocent, its all content, but were talking about the actual the meat and potatoes of the email, right . I think i find that to be the most important, and then i also find Location Information to be very important and look forward to working on that a lot more. As greg was saying, right now its become complicated with the raleigh decision that just came out. Youre dealing with gps location, youre dealing with tower location these are two different types of locations so you need a different type of law. I click this button here so it goes in the cloud, i click this button here so it goes on my phone. So do you search on the phone or do you search in the cloud . These are the types of things that are being discussed, the types of decisions coming down and moving forward in a locations base, that needs to be taken into account before kind of talking about what will be done with location, and also what is the future going to look like, right . So what is perspective and retrospective data going to look like . Right now you might say prospective data, no big deal, retrospective, no big deal. I wouldnt say that about either of them, actually. So you talk about that and move closer and say, just a onetime ping doesnt really tell you that much, but if we keep going down this route that were going, when is one time going to be too much and we dont know that. So that is a discussion that is ongoing, and that a lot of members are taking very seriously and looking into that. And as things change and aztec no as technology progresses and we see that, there will abe a lt more discussion on that. I would be surprised if congress got to Location Information before the supremes did. And i say that because theres now a split in the circuits. The 11th circuit ruled that you need a warrant for Location Information to store cell site Location Information, and the Third Circuit said you might need a warrant for it depending on the circumstances. And one other circuit said i think it was the fifth one circuit said you dont need a warrant for it. So theres a split, and its right for the supremes to weigh in when they want to and when somebody feels a case to them. Part of the issue with a lot of ecfa, as congressman poe was pointing out. There is a violation to the Fourth Amendment. The remedy is you get the evidence excluded. So what does that mean . It means a lot of criminal defendants will claim their Fourth Amendment rights were violated and youll get a body of law that develops about whether those rights were violated. Ecfa doesnt have a statutory exclusionary rule. There is one in the wire tap act but not for stored communications. And the consequence of that is you dont get the same development of the law, except when the person makes the Fourth Amendment claim. If you could make the statutory claim, hey, they violated the statute, and so i get to get this evidence excluded, you would get a lot more cases coming up through the courts. We dont have that many cases because were only in the Fourth Amendment land when it comes to the exclusionary rule. It is sort of a per verversif law that you dont want a judge shrugging his shoulder, maybe ask another judge. But some judge will issue those orders, so Fourth Amendment law seems to be exclusively by guilty people trying to overturn convictions which is perhaps not the most healthy, Structural Condition for the development of protective law. When metadata, when its transactional records that are obtained, they dont always require notice to the people whose data is obtained. Which means if data is obtained about you, data about what sites youre visiting, data about who youre communicating with, you may never learn that it happened, therefore, have no opportunity to bring, lets say, an action for violation of your federal constitutional rights. Theyre incredibly there, anyway, but if you wanted to, you would like the opportunity. So i think part of the issue here is theres obviously an enormous amount of data gathering happening leading to charges here. But not as much of a Public Awareness how incredibly frequent those digital searches, much more frequent than traditional wire taps. Before we shift to audience questions, are there any last remarks anyone wants to make, or can we jump to the audience . I would just make one last comment. Ive been watching for a long time, and ive never worked on an issue where there was so much consensus. Really. I mean, how often do you see google and microsoft sitting shoulder to shoulder advocating the same position . How often do you see americans for tax reform and the aclu on the same ladder . Its extraordinary. There is a website you can read about this coalition. Its www. Digitalprocess. Org and youll see just how many people have gotten behind these ecta reform principles, how Many Political groups across the spectrum. Its really amazing. Its worth thinking, google and yahoo, microsoft companies, and telecommunication carriers that in the last couple years have begun voluntarily disclosing information about the quantity of request for information. Its a positive trend that i hope we see continue, and im glad its something that these companies have been taking the lead on. So, yeah, lets let the audience jump in with questions. I will be less tolerant than representative poe in that i will enforce a threesentence rule, which is to say somewhere around the end of your third sentence, if not before, i will hope that your voice rises in such a way as to suggest by that inflexion that an interrogative is being posed. Lets start there. Just picking up on your last point, why does metadata seem to get such a pass . It strikes me that if i have a communication with julian, it doesnt say necessarily much about the content, but if i have the same email thats addressed to the five of you, that is somewhat indicative of what the subject and the content of that email is about. So why the pass . I think its partly in historic artifact that when courts were coming up with rules for what was going to be protected by the warrant requirement you know, there is a case smith v. Maryland where the issue was how about the numbers you dial on a phone . Is that going to be protected by the warrant requirement when that information is stored with the Telephone Company . And the court said, well, its not as revealing as the content is. It doesnt even tell you whether the call was actually completed. It doesnt say who you even talked to. It just says you dialed these numbers. And you know youre conveying these numbers to the phone company to make the call, and so maybe it should be warrant protected. Whats changed is that there is so much more metadata out there now about us, and it can paint a much fuller picture of what our activities are. And i think there is a growing consensus that metadata ought to be protected at a higher level than it is. One of the Digital Process recommendations goes to metadata collected in realtime. I think were moving in that direction, but in particular the noncontent most likely to be first protected by a warrant requirement is going to be Location Information just because its so revealing, particularly when collected over a long period of time. And so i would jump on that and say metadata is not getting a pass, its ranking. Right . So the content in my email is this is in my mind, right . The content in my email is more revealing than perhaps my gps location, and that is more revealing than perhaps my communications. So this is my personal perspective. And im looking at what can be done and what cant be done. If i walk down the street and say metadata to the next ten people, most will think im just babbling. Youve got to look at education, youve got to look at what people are ready for, youve got to look at where we are and what can be done, an