Case 2:16-mj-01061-TJR Document 13 Filed 02/03/17 Page 28 of 29 Government that the data was located in Ireland and that it would remain in Ireland while the Government sought process, either under an MLAT request, or by using Letters Rogatory. In the present case, however, the Government never will be able to utilize established legal process to request assistance from a foreign nation to access Google's user data that is stored in that foreign nation. Google admits that the location of the data could change from the time the Government applies for legal process to the time when the process is served upon Google. See Stip. ~ 4. The Government explained the problem: The data, however, is a moving target: stored one day in a data center in Finland or Singapore; and automatically moved the next day to a new data center in Chile, or Belgium. Further complicating things is that Google user data - such as an email, or an e-mail attachment - is not stored as one single, cohesive digital file; instead, Google stores individual data files in multiple data "shards," each separate shard being stored in separate locations around the world. And, Google cannot even determine where its separate data shards are stored around the world at any given time; and, even if one shard were to stay in one place, without all of the shards being collected and put together at once to form the actual digital file, each shard alone is a useless piece of coded gibberish. Of course, each shard might move instantaneously to somewhere else; and then to somewhere else; and so on, and so forth. Thus Google has created a system in which Google can retrieve the data, and its users can retrieve the data, but the government will only be able to obtain data that happens to be stored in the United States at the very moment when Google gathers the responsive information. Google cannot say where its foreign-stored data is today, and to the extent that it can, such data may be automatically moved to another server in another country within short periods. The government, therefore, cannot request the assistance of a foreign country using an MLAT request or Letters Rogatory, because no one knows which country to ask, and even if specific servers could be identified, the data may no longer be there by the time its location has been identified. Moreover, there are no Google employees in other countries that can access their foreign-stored data; instead, such data must, as a consequence of their network architecture, be accessed from a Google employee within the United States. And, thus, certain Google user data - even data that the government knows about, and writes about within a search warrant affidavit - is never accessible through compulsory legal process. Never. 28