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Expectation of Privacy Extended to Email

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the making-it-harder-to-snoop dept.

An anonymous reader writes "In a 6th circuit court decision [PDF] today 4th amendment expectation of privacy rights were extended to email. 'The ruling by the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Ohio upholds a lower court ruling that placed a temporary injunction on e-mail searches in a fraud investigation against Steven Warshak, who runs a supplements company best known for a male enhancement product called Enzyte. Warshak hawks Enzyte using "Smiling Bob" ads that have gained some notoriety.'"

3 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. Patriot act by CaptainPatent · · Score: 4, Interesting

    While this does not deal specifically with the patriot act, this will hopefully help set a precedent that a lot of the rights we "gave up" with respect to wiretapping in the patriot act will not be tolerated.

    --
    Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
  2. Re:too bad by LWATCDR · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yea so you can go to jail for just having an Ethernet sniffer!
    Really people should have the same expectation of privacy in an email as they do with a postcard. None at all.
    It is clear text.

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  3. Re:too bad by Vancorps · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Don't know how email works in your organization but here it's encrypted until it hits the first MTA. An ethernet sniffer won't get you anywhere. A postcard also cannot be removed from the mailbox by anyone other than the recipient, a representative, or through a court order. That sounds about right for email.

    Just because it's realistic to say that a few people might read the postcard while handling your mail doesn't mean that the police should be able to just grab all your mail and rifle through it without a warrant.