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

[ArcherB]

--> 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.

You mean they can get me for that??

Only if they run the image through their new ass-recognition software.

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:Sure I am guilty...

[Mathonwy]

Are you kidding? The method by which the information was gathered is INCREDIBLY important to a case. It has to be. Some brief examples of why:

Judge: "Very compelling evidence here. How did you come by it?"
Sherrif: "Me and the boys made it up. It seemed like the sort of thing he would do."

Judge: "Very compelling evidence here. How did you come by it?"
Sherrif: "One of our men went undercover and pretended to be his friend. He wasn't originally planning on doing it, but after our guy kept encouraging him, he managed to convince him to consider it. Then we nabbed him!"

Judge: "Very compelling evidence here. How did you come by it?"
Sherrif: "We broke down his door, surprising him in the act."
Judge: "Very fortunate! How did you know it was him?"
Sherrif: "Oh, we didn't. We just went down the line and kicked in all the doors on all the houses on the street until we found someone doing something guilty."

Judge: "Very compelling evidence here. How did you come by it?"
Sherrif: "We just held his head underwater until he thought he was drowning. We did it enough times, and he confessed to everything. He didn't even read the confession we prepared for him! He was just that eager to sign. Must have had a guilty concience or something."
[optional ending]
Judge: "Very fortunate! How did you know it was him?"
Sherrif: "Oh, we didn't. We just started torturing people. Eventually they always confess to SOMETHING..."

So let's review. In example #1, it matters how they got the evidence, since it matters that it actually be, you know, EVIDENCE. #2 is what is called "entrapment", and is kind of a manufactured guilt. (i. e. they woudn't have been guilty of anything except that an undercover officer went and tried to convince them to do something illegal.) #3 is an example of where [possibly] justice was done to one person, at the expense of the justice of everyone else. (How would you like to have your door kicked in some day by police, who then say "ok, you're clean. Just checking!" Would the knowledge that they MIGHT catch someone that way be enough to offset your outrage at having your privacy invaded and your posessions broken?) And finally, #4 kind of speaks for itself. (I hope.)

So yeah. The reason that there is a mindset that "how the evidence is gained matters as much as the guilt" is because it kinda does. Or how about this: Think of it from a logic perspective - Your proofs are only as strong as the axioms they are based on. Legal judgements only have as much justice as the evidence they are based on. So before handing out judgements, it's INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT to make sure that the evidence is all on the up-and-up. You are probably thinking of cases where "well, everyone knew he did it, who cares how they proved it? If he walks, it's on a technicality", but YOU CAN'T CONVICT SOMEONE BASED ON "everyone knows they did it." And you SHOULDN'T be able to. (That way leads to mob-rule.)