Google, the parent company of Gmail, is willing to co-operate in the investigations into the controversial e-mails presented by Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley in Parliament two weeks ago. However, such assistance must come from the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLAT) which allows a foreign government to ask the US government for assistance in obtaining evidence from entities in the US, including companies.
If the US government approves the request, the company will respond. However, the request can only be made via the Central Authority which falls under the Office of the Attorney General. If the MLAT is not used, the alternative is a joint T&T/US investigation. A well placed source told the T&T Guardian, “Google will facilitate a request from T&T to access its servers in a bid to authenticate the 31 e-mails if it is done through the right channel such as the MLAT or a joint investigation.”
There have been several calls for the probe into the e-mails to be done by a foreign independent body. Deputy Commissioner of Police Mervyn Richardson, who is leading the investigation, said at a recent press briefing that international assistance will be sought. He said he believes his officers are capable of conducting the investigation in a transparent and professional manner.
However, the source said law enforcement personnel cannot just enter the US jurisdiction and request access to Gmail’s servers. “It doesn’t operate like that. There are protocol which need to be followed.”
The T&T Guardian was directed to Google’s Web site and a section headed Requests from outside the US which states: “Using Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs) and other diplomatic and co-operative arrangements, non-US agencies can work through the US Department of Justice to gather evidence for legitimate investigations. In some cases, the US Federal Trade Commission may be able to provide assistance.
“If US law is implicated in the investigation, a US agency may open its own investigation and provide non-US investigators with evidence gathered. “Google may also disclose data in response to emergency disclosure requests when we believe that doing so is necessary to prevent death or serious physical harm to someone.
“On a voluntary basis, we may provide user data in response to valid legal process from non-US government agencies, if those requests are consistent with international norms, US law, Google’s policies and the law of the requesting country.” If a non-US agency goes through a diplomatic process like MLAT to obtain a US-issued Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) subpoena, court order or search warrant, Google would produce the same information as if the request originated directly from a US agency.
The ECPA regulates how a government agency can use these types of legal process to compel companies, like Google, to disclose information about users. In cases where Google honours legal process issued directly from the non-US agency, the information disclosed could include, for example, Google or YouTube account registration information—name, account creation information and associated e-mail addresses—and recent sign-in IP addresses and associated time stamps.
How MLAT works
The Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLAT) process is fairly simple. If, for example, a police officer in London is investigating a case of identity theft and has evidence that the culprit has a particular Gmail account, the officer will need to know the identity of the user.
Since there is a MLAT between the UK and the US, the officer can ask the UK Home Office to request information from the Office of International Affairs in the US Department of Justice which hands the request to the appropriate US Attorney’s office. The latter works through US legal process and serves the user data request to Google. If the request satisfies the law and Google’s policies, the information is provided to the US Attorney’s office and then the officer in the UK is supplied with the requested information.
MLAT is not the only way for governments outside the US to get information from US companies. Other options include joint investigations between US and local law enforcement and emergency disclosure requests.