Government Has a Right to Read Your Email?

gone.fishing writes to tell us that a new lawsuit is challenging the government's right to read your e-mail. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune is reporting that a seller of "natural male enhancement" products sued after a fraud indictment based on evidence gleaned from his electronic mail. Federal prosecutors say they don't need a search warrant to read your e-mail messages if those messages happen to be stored in someone else's computer."

Comments

What part of

[Marxist Hacker 42]

No Reasonable Expectation of Privacy in the Public Domain don't you understand?

Like it or not, the Internet was built by the Federal Government- and it very much is the public domain. Any message sent across it unencrypted is just as much fair game for prosecutuion as taking a picture of you mooning other cars on the freeway.

Re:What part of

[Mr. Underbridge]

Like it or not, the Internet was built by the Federal Government- and it very much is the public domain. Any message sent across it unencrypted is just as much fair game for prosecutuion as taking a picture of you mooning other cars on the freeway.

That's not the argument they're making. They're arguing that since you don't own the computer the message is stored on, you have no right to privacy.

That makes no sense, however. I don't own the phone network once it leaves my house (more precisely, the NID), but I have a right to privacy as defined by quite a bit of legislation.

Like it or not, the Internet was built by the Federal Government- and it very much is the public domain

Don't know where to start with this one. First, when we talk about "public domain," we're talking copyrightable works. The internet isn't copyrightable. Second, the government doesn't own the individual links in the internet backbone.

In short, I'm having a hard time seeing why an unsecured communication between two people should be protected when it's a phone conversation taking place over, say, Verizon-owned fiber, but not if it's an email saved on a Verizon-owned hard drive.

Re:What part of

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Different public domain. When you're talking privacy laws, the Internet is more like FedEx, UPS, or your local city park than it is like a phone line or the highly protected US Mail.

Re:What part of

[Marxist Hacker 42]

So if I send a work I've copyrighted through email, the ISP owns it?

They own that copy- which you as the copyright owner freely gave them by ASKING THEIR E-MAIL SERVER TO MAKE A COPY!

Damn! Should the Fed have the right to open your snail mail, too?

They did with US Mail before they passed a bunch of laws making it illegal. They still have the right to open snail mail sent through FedEx, UPS, or a half dozen other private carriers.

What's the difference?

The difference is that the laws haven't been passed to make snooping on e-mail illegal. Or for that matter, UPS and FedEx packets.

Even when in public, I have a right to reasonable privacy.

Not by the Supreme Court, who ruled that you have NO reasonable expectation of privacy in the public sphere.

For instance, it's illegal to take pictures up someone's skirt. UP their skirt, you know, from ground level? If someone happens to be leaving a car and wearing no undies, that's different.

Yes, but that's a different special exception law- like the special exception of privacy in the US Mail. No such law has been passed for the Internet yet.

You seem to be making up legal precedent to suit your argument. The internet is not "the public domain." How is it different than phone lines?

The laws haven't been passed to make ISPs common carriers yet.

I mean, your phone conversation passes through many different telcos and any of them could easily listen to your conversations, but this is illegal.

Yes, but once again, special exception laws had to be passed to create that expectation of privacy in the public sphere.

How is the Internet different?

There aren't any laws creating privacy there yet.

Don't ISPs have common carrier status, and doesn't that preclude them from monitoring your communications?

No, ISPs do NOT have common carrier status- and they can do whatever the hell they want to as far as monitoring your communications are concerned.

And doesn't the government have to play by different rules anyway?

Yes, to a certain extent- but you can't smoke a joint in front of a policeman and expect not to get arrested either.

In the US, our government is bound by the Constitution which precludes them from doing certain things that a company could do.

True, but this isn't one of them, because the Internet wasn't created at the time the Constitution was. Neither were phones or the US Mail service- which is why special laws had to be passed by Congress to create privacy in that portion of the public sphere.

In short, your argument makes no sense It almost seems as if you are being contrary just to be contrary. I can say that black is no different than white, but that won't make it so any more than your claims about our legal and governmental systems make them true.

And claiming common carrier status for ISPs when no such law has been passed is just plain stupid.

Re:What part of

[Fastolfe]

I suspect the parent poster is talking more about possession of the data than a transfer of your copyrights. In addition, ISPs are not considered common carriers, though they may be utilizing common carriers to send and receive your data.

If you have drugs in your car, and you loan your car to a friend, there's no law that says that they can't root around in your things, they have to be discreet about what they find, or that they can't drive up to a police station and let the cops have their way with your stuff. Your friend has lawful possession of your car, because you let them have it.

Your mail provider has lawful possession of your data, because you set up an e-mail account there. Your ISP also has lawful (though usually more brief) possession of your data, because that's the point of contracting for Internet service. You understood that by giving your data to them, they would send it over the Internet to its destination. Your ISP has business arrangements with other ISPs to make that happen. These ISPs must necessarily possess your data for a short period of time in order to perform the services you contracted with your ISP to perform. There is little (IF ANY) law that requires them to keep it confidential. (At least, that is the argument of the State.)

Even if you have some sort of contract with the friend (ISP) that says they do things to your car (data) that you don't want, there's no law that requires them to obey it. Worst case you take them to court for damages from their breach of contract. This will have no effect on the admissibility of the evidence.

Right to read

[laffer1]

This is more of a question rather than comment. Is it legal for them to read snail mail at the post office? Its stored there until you get it delivered. If no, then this lawsuit has a point.

Specific instance of a general problem

[Jerf]

This is just a specific instantiation of a general problem with computers.

With old-style non-electronic messages, there is no distinction between the contents of the letter and the physical letter itself. Hundreds of years of laws and general ethical principles were written based on the assumption this will always be true. Now it's not, and it's all breaking down, but most people don't even notice this is the root of the problem because the assumption is so deeply ingrained. Instead, they want to just hack around the problem, not noticing you really need to rethink the whole system.

Copyright has the exact same problem.

The internet privacy advocates mentioned in the article, which the general /. populace will probably view with more sympathy than the government, by claiming that email should be treated just like physical mail are really committing the same error as the government, who are basically acting as if they do have a place where they could grab a physical letter and therefore they can, just as if it were physically sitting somewhere.

The reality is that we need to sit down and really re-think the entire situation. The old model is broken.

In Soviet Russia...

[Kelson]

I've woken up in the Soviet Union. No, the police cannot steam open your mail without a warrant. No, they cannot tap your phone without a warrant. (Until recently of course). Why we have given up on these principles and accepted universal wiretapping for newer technologies, I cannot imagine.

Kind of makes you wonder who really won the Cold War, doesn't it?

We've obviously been doing better than Russia and most or all of the other former Soviet republics, and capitalism clearly triumphed over communism, but when it comes to personal freedoms, we're doing to ourselves what we feared the Soviets would do to us. Did we really come out on top?

Re:Difference between phone & email

[meta-monkey]

Why more people don't use encrypted email boggles my mind.

Probably because it requires every person you send email to or receive email from to be aware of the encryption system and how to use it, and most users of email are technically illiterate? I, for one, don't want to have to try to teach my parents how to use PGP so the government won't find out I'm planning to arrive for Christmas dinner at 2PM.

Re:Difference between phone & email

[Fastolfe]

Why more people don't use encrypted email boggles my mind.

Is there some keyboard shortcut in Google Mail that I'm missing? People don't use encrypted mail because it's not readily available. Yes, the technology has been around for decades, but until it's pointy-clicky accessible via all of the major e-mail providers, it'll never go anywhere.