Bill on Cross-Border Data Access Needs to Change, Despite Laudable Goal

Congress is on the verge of passing the CLOUD Act as part of the forthcoming omnibus spending bill, but attaching it to must pass legislation without necessary modifications to three of its components would be shortsighted and create some potential for abuse.

For those unfamiliar with the legislation, the CLOUD Act would amend the Stored Communications Act to enable qualifying foreign governments to bypass the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) process when conducting domestic investigation, and instead make direct requests of U.S. companies to access data that those providers store. Provided proper constraints, this is a laudable goal and necessary to execute our national security, foreign policy, and economic goals effectively, but it still needs work.