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The Privacy of Email
An Anonymous Coward writes "A U.S. appeals court in Ohio has ruled that e-mail messages stored on Internet servers are protected by the Constitution as are telephone conversations and that a federal law permitting warrantless secret searches of e-mail violates the Fourth Amendment.
'The Stored Communications Act is very important,' former federal prosecutor and counter-terrorism specialist Andrew McCarthy told United Press International. But the future of the law now hangs in the balance."
I thought this balanced out to "States Secret", or better put, "You get privacy until we decide you don't need it"
http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/att/
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There is no more expectation of privacy in a plaintext email than there is in an open-face postcard. If you want privacy, take steps to encrypt it, not unlike putting a letter in a sealed envelope (as it pertains to the law, not ease of circumvention). This will be overturned, and with good reason.
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I do like the "Where the third party is not expected to access the e-mails in the normal course of business ... the party (sending them) maintains a reasonable expectation of privacy." bit. We need more decisions like this, if we want to remain an even somewhat free society.
It's not a matter of tracking everything. Even if they only track "suspected dissidents," who will doubtless be selected by procedures as effective and precise as those that get people on to no fly lists, it's still a massive invasion of the privacy of the people who get tracked.
Despite the torrent of "email isn't private, and only stupid people think it is" posts that will follow, if a monkey at the local ISP took sensitive customer emails (to each other, not to the company) that he had plucked from their servers and posted them to a blog or whatever, there would be an outcry, criminal investigation, lawsuit, and (fake) apologies. If the prosecutor's own dirty emails to his wife|mistress|whatever were publicized, the prosecutor would suddenly discover that a crime had been committed.
When it comes to private parties, either communication is private, or it isn't. If it isn't, then Joe Schmoe who works at AOL or the local ISP can read customers' emails at random and post the amusing bits to a public forum. Anything Joe Schmoe can't legally do, his brother Officer Jim needs a warrant to do. If Officer Jim doesn't need a warrant to do it, that means Joe the private citizen can do it with impunity.
What we're saying is, "you have an expectation of privacy in your private affairs, unless it's a police eyeball/eardrum, and in those cases you have no expectation of privacy because your action was public and they don't need a warrant." Bullshit. Anything the police don't need a warrant for is something every single private citizen should be able to do with impunity. Anything we don't want the public doing (privacy-wise) is something the police should need a warrant to do. Otherwise you're giving police and prosecutors the power to arbitrarily target anytone they want, without any oversight at all. This isn't complicated, people. I can understand why they would ask for it, but not why we would be so stupid as to give it to them.
Letters in the mail? Sealed with glue. Glue. Wow. You must not have much expectation of privacy there, otherwise you would've used a more robust method of ensuring your privacy. Even your phone calls are unencryped, sent as electrical impulses over wires and cables. Is it okay to listen to and record cellphone conversations, because they are transmitted through the air? If not, why not? If people wanted security, they wouldn't have transmitted those radio waves all over the place. People are so stupid.
It's true that we have laws against most (or all) of this type of surveillance. But it's just to protect the stupid people. I think that anytime it's possible to intercept your message, everyone should be able to do so, no warrant or probable cause needed, and use it in any way they want. That's the only way people will stop being so stupid that they think they have an expectation of privacy.
I thought this balanced out to "States Secret", or better put, "You get privacy until we decide you don't need it"
"Those who give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
The cost of freedom is the risk you take that someone will use that freedom to harm you. The payback is that you and your family live your lives free.
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When I send a postcard, I have good faith that nobody along the way (mail carrier, other postal worker, OCR systems) will read what I have written. However, if someone or something handling my postcard along its journey really wanted to read the contents, to do so would be relatively easy.
It's the same case with a plaintext e-mail. I have good faith that no system administrators or automated monitoring systems will read my plaintext e-mail along its journey, but if someone really wanted to read the contents, to do so would be relatively easy.
Preventing this requires encryption for e-mail, and for tangible mail either a sealed letter (not much of a roadblock for the determined), or by actually encrypting the text I write on the postcard.
So yeah, there are some similiarities in my mind.
Our Founding Fathers (and Mothers too), IMO, did not intend for the protections under the Constitution to be limited to "a select few". The words "ALL MEN" appear in this document for a reason. Therefore, not only should it apply to US Citizens, those here with Green Cards, foreign visitors, and even those here illegally, but it has to apply to everyone worldwide. Either they apply to everyone, or they apply to no one.