PA Supreme Court Decides if Reading Email==Wiretap

An anonymous reader noted that "Excite is reporting that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is taking up a case to decide the question may police look at a suspect's email and instant messages without first obtaining a court order. The defendant, a former police officer, is also claiming his Fourth Amendment privacy rights were also violated. The outcome will only affect Pennsylvania but the issues at hand may eventually reach the US Supreme Court." Umm... Duh?

Comments

More Stupid Judges Making Stupid Analogies

[JoeShmoe]

"Any reasonably intelligent person, savvy enough to be using the Internet ... would be aware that messages are received in a recorded format, by their very nature, and can be downloaded or printed," said the court, likening an e-mail message to a message left on a telephone answering machine.

A show of hands please...who here has to log into their answer machine to get messages? What manufacturer makes these password-protected answer machines?

Judges have no business making these kinds of comparisons when they clearly have never even used the technology to begin with. I think the biggest flaw our legal system faces in the 21st+ century is judges who make grand assumptions about technology, rather than have the honesty to admit they don't know how things work and have an expert brought in to explain it to them.

If this guy was posting messages on a newsgroup or something...sure...I would find the statment accurate. I, a reasonably intelligent person, savvy enough to be using the Internet would be aware that my messages are being received in a recorded format and and can be downloaded or printed. But for Pete's sake the same is absolutely untrue for e-mail. The very notion that anything I e-mail to someone is available for downloading/printing by anyone but the receipient is a huge privacy violation.

Judges ought not to be making comments about "reasonably intelligent people" who are "savvy about the Internet" when their analogies demonstrate conclusively that they themselves are neither.

- JoeShmoe

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