Case 2:16-mj-01061-TJR Document 13 Filed 02/03/17 Page 26 of 29
See Stip. if 4; N.T. 1/12/17 at 16. 18 Because of the structure of this system, Google cannot say
with any certainty which foreign country's sovereignty would be implicated when Google
accesses the content of communications in order to produce it in response to legal process.
Before a court bars the Government from using a judicially approved search warrant to require
disclosure of user data that constitute evidence of crimes, it would do well not to be controlled by
possibilities and legal abstractions, but to focus instead on realities.
Furthermore, it bears repeating that under the facts presented to this court, the
searches pursuant to the SCA warrants will occur in Pennsylvania. No foreign nation's
sovereignty will be interfered with in any ascertainable way at the time the two warrants at issue
are executed because the searches will be conducted in the United States.
2.
Reasonable Interpretation
In addition to the presumption against extraterritorial application, a court
interpreting the SCA should consider another important canon of construction. Specifically,
courts should avoid an interpretation of a statute that produces odd or absurd results, or that is
inconsistent with common sense. See Disabled in Action of Pa. v. Southeastern Pa. Trans. Auth.,
539 F.3d 199, 210 (3d Cir. 2008) (citations omitted). "Statutes should be interpreted to avoid
untenable distinctions and unreasonable results whenever possible." Am. Tobacco v. Patterson,
456 U.S. 63, 71 (1982). See also Register v. PNC Fin. Serv. Grp., Inc., 477 F.3d 56, 67 (3d Cir.
2009) (same). To interpret the SCA as propounded by the majority panel in Microsoft, would
lead to an unreasonable result in the cases at bar.
18
"[W]hen one stores data in the cloud, one often has little control or even
knowledge about the places where it is being held; these are decisions that are instead generally
entrusted to computer algorithms." Daskal, supra at 368.
26
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