No email privacy rights under Constitution, US gov claims

[kpete]

No email privacy rights under Constitution, US gov claims

On October 8, 2007, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati granted the government's request for a full-panel hearing in United States v. Warshak case centering on the right of privacy for stored electronic communications. At issue is whether the procedure whereby the government can subpoena stored copies of your email - similar to the way they could simply subpoena any physical mail sitting on your desk - is unconstitutionally broad.

This appears to be more than a mere argument in support of the constitutionality of a Congressional email privacy and access scheme. It represents what may be the fundamental governmental position on Constitutional email and electronic privacy - that there isn't any. What is important in this case is not the ultimate resolution of that narrow issue, but the position that the United States government is taking on the entire issue of electronic privacy. That position, if accepted, may mean that the government can read anybody's email at any time without a warrant.

more hypocrocy at:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/04/4th-amendment_email_privacy/

[mainegreen]

1. If the gov't takes that position, expect encrypted email to become the default.

Back to square one for the government.

[harun]

4. First thought in my mind as well. Wouldn't take long either

All it would take is one of the main providers to build it in to their system then the others would follow suit.

[MuseRider]

2. I guess that means we get theirs now?

No? I thought not.

[DangerDave921]

6. LOL

Excellent point!

As an attorney, this is a really interesting issue. The right to privacy usually boils down to a question of whether a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy for a certain act. When a person chooses to make a statement in public, there is obviously no expectation of privacy. Same thing for saying something to another person. The courts have held that when you say something to another person (such as to a police informant posing as a cell mate in prison), there is no reasonable expectation of privacy because you told someone else. Once you tell someone else, you can't claim that your privacy was invaded.

As for the Internet, when you put an email out into the world, it has to go through servers and whatnot to get to the intended recipient. Does that count as making it public because it is accessible to someone who knows how to dig into a computer and find it?

[VP505]

3. If thats the

case when do "We The People" get to look at all the EMAIL from the White House, after all isn't our Government supposed to be "by the people" and "for the people"???

[HuffleClaw]

5. unless you happen to be the WHITE HOUSE or any republican under investigation...

but everyone else is screwed

[flashl]

7. We already had carnivore

How Carnivore Worked

You may have heard about Carnivore, a controversial program developed by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to give the agency access to the online/e-mail activities of suspected criminals. For many, it is eerily reminiscent of George Orwell's book "1984." Although Carnivore was abandoned by the FBI in favor of commercially available eavesdropping software by January 2005, the program that once promised to renew the FBI's specific influence in the world of computer-communications monitoring is nonetheless intriguing in its structure and application.

Although the claim was "activities of suspected criminal" the method to capture that information is the key. In many cases, the FBI simply attached carnivore to the entry point of the ISP's location. Meaning, ALL traffic in the ISP was captured.