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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?
WTF? sounds like the girl submitted the conversation to the police (smart girl.). + the pedafile solicited sex with a police officer posing as a 15 year old. what wiretap? don't tell me soliciting sex with a 15 year old is free speech either.
So it is not simply that one participant alowed the police to view the logs. Unless we are taking as a presuming that everyone assumes that all conversations are recorded/logged by both parties. While agree that the topic may be a little misleading, this is also going to be an interesting case to follow.
An interesting turn would be if the court ruled that the girl logging (if that is in fact what was turned over) was a violoation of the other users privacy right as he did not consent to her logging the conversation.
-OctZ
Upon reading this thread further, I've also changed my mind about the wiretapping definition. Wiretapping, it seems to me, is something that records a conversation neither party expected to keep a record of, or give others easy access to. Voice conversations clearly fall into this area, because as soon as they are spoken, they're understood to evaporate. But most people know that email is not priviliged communication (as shown by employers monitoring/reading employees' emails, and text of emails being subpoenaed for various purposes).
Many people here seem to be surprised that whether this is wiretapping is even a question -- as if it should obviously be classified as wiretapping. But if we take the approach that whatever you do on the internet may be public information (no guarantee of privacy), then reading someone else's public messages might not be infringing on privacy -- there was no expectation of it to begin with! Just because someone hears or sees you do something, doesn't mean that your privacy was invaded!
However, I am interested in seeing what the courts have to say about this, as my interpretation is only a casual one. As people come to expect more privacy from the internet, will the law extend the privacy people expect? Are encrypted email messages entitled to special protection? I wonder what instant messages between cellphones will be classified as? Will these be priviliged "wire-tappable" communications?
The story has more holes in it than most hollywood plots of late.
It sounds like the girl went to the police about it, then the police posed as a 15 year old to catch the guy.
I don't see where any wiretapping or anything similar went on. Obviously the girl went to police after the fact, so they couldn't tap into that. Perhaps she brought a printout of the conversation - it doesn't say. And then when the police posed as the 15 year old, they caught him in the act.
About the closest is says is that the police looking at the messages should be subject to wiretap procedures - however, I'm guessing that the girl took the messages to the police. Nothing was recorded by the police - this is akin to the witness saying the defendant said such and such in a phone conversation with me, but with photographic memory.
I could see his complaint if the police had intercepted the messages in real-time by tapping into the line of communication (a sniffer at the ISP or something like that).
I suppose he could have claimed the girl modified the content of the messages in the printout if one existed, but since he got caught red-handed...oh well.
The legal status of review and interception of unencrypted communications is a deep and fascinating inquiry. Virtually all these questions come down to the simple-sounding issue of whether the communicating parties had a "reasonable expectation of privacy."
The fundamental difference between telephone lines and internet communications derives from its "party line" nature -- interception isn't necessarily interception per se. Indeed, e-mail is in many respects much more like a postcard than a sealed envelope, and it is well-settled that postcard communications are NOT "private," although entering land to open a mailbox to see it WOULD be a violation.
But such analogies are fruitless, for they are always flawed. This is neither a postcard nor a sealed envelope nor a proprietary switching network -- it is an internet communication. There are separate laws that govern conduct on such networks, and these laws are different from general wiretap laws.
Lawyers have been battling over the question whether the use of unencrypted e-mail for attorney/client discussions constitutes breach of attorney/client privilege or the attorney's obligation to maintain a client's confidentiality. Unsurprisingly, the issue comes down to the same basic question -- reasonableness of the conduct and a reasonable expectation of privacy.
The vast majority of ethics rulings (non-binding administrative opionions published by state bars and the ABA) seem to treat e-mail the same as telephone communications, because there exist laws, in particular the ECPA and the CFAA that criminalize interception of transmissions. But those opinions may not be the law -- and certainly they were based upon a severely flawed (that is, oversimplified) understanding of both the relevant laws (which do not apply to many third parties, such as ISPs and the police in particular) and the technology itself.
This case may hit on those questions as they necessarily address "reasonable expectation of privacy." It will be fun to watch. Hopefully something useful will result.
Statutory rape, emotional maturity, blah, blah, blah all aside - this is not pedophilia. Maybe a bit perverted, but not as much as a few rightous people would like to think.
In both cases, existing law provides for signifigant protection on data in transit, so all the people blathering about how since you can snoop any packets coming over your router it's the same as broadcasting on CNN might want to perk up as well. (BTW, there's a large difference between scanning headers and whatnot with automated scrips to route packets and actually having a live human or heuristic algorithm to store/redirect them based on content)
- Hackers don't kick your door in.
- Hackers don't publicize your name as a "suspect", thus destroying your reputation.
- Hackers don't pauperize you with legal costs.
- Hackers aren't prosecutors concerned with obtaining as many convictions as possible.
- Hackers cannot put you in prison.
- Hackers cannot shoot you dead if you try to get away.
- Hackers don't joke about your future rape schedule in their prison.
- Hackers can't hold you indefinitely in an undisclosed location without counsel or contact.
- Hackers can be a nuissance, but they rarely destroy your life.
- Hackers aren't your government.