Your example doesn't make any sense as that's not the case they were debating about, it is not an excuse not to turn over the weapon from a different country, i

Your example doesn't make any sense as that's not the case they were debating about, it is not an excuse not to turn over the weapon from a different country, it is about who can ask you to turn over the weapon. In Ireland, it is the Ireland's legal authorities who should be asking you to turn over the weapon and then hand it over to the US as long as they agree with the request from US. Using your example, the closest (not really the most accurate one) analog would be: 1. Microsoft is the landlord of two places, one in US and one in Ireland 2. US court ordered Microsoft with a US search warrant to enter the property of a customer in Ireland and grab his murder weapon. This is basically what's happening. No country in the world including the US are entitled to anything in a different country. Last I checked, the US does not own Ireland. 3. The right way, US filed a request with the Ireland's legal authorities and they issued a search warrant for Microsoft to grab the murder weapon. In this case, this is legal because of the international agreements between both countries. Ireland should be in charge of issuing the warrant and enforcing it, not Microsoft with a US search warrant. In fact, the said US warrant should not even be valid in Ireland. The US government admitted that they can go to Ireland's authorities to issue a local search warrant based on the international treaties, however they whined that it would take too long. So, they instead issued a warrant against Microsoft and asked it to get the data from Ireland.