U.S. to Allow Foreigners to Serve Warrants on U.S. Internet Firms

Internet companies could face overseas demands for email searches, wiretaps.

The Obama administration is working on a series of agreements with foreign governments that would allow them for the first time to serve U.S. technology companies with warrants for email searches and wiretaps—a move that is already stirring debates over privacy, security, crime and terrorism.

Brad Wiegmann, a senior official at the Justice Department, discussed the administration’s efforts during a public forum on Friday at a congressional office building in Washington, D.C. The first such agreement is being assembled with the U.K., he said.

Word of the plans came one day after a federal appeals court ruled that federal warrants couldn’t be used to search data held overseas by Microsoft Corp. , dealing the agency a major legal defeat.

The court’s decision in favor of Microsoft could prove to be a major barrier to the Obama administration’s proposed new rules to share data with other nations in criminal and terrorism probes, which would be sharply at odds with the ruling. It might lead some companies to reconfigure their networks to route customer data away from the U.S., putting it out of the reach of federal investigators if the administration’s plan fails.

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