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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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"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I have a few doubts. There are billions of emails flying about constantly. Anyone who beleives they can be effectivelly monitored has to be kidding themselves, so how useful is a law that says you can't do this?
Besides, if you are convicted, or suspected of crime, they can always obtain legal access to your mails, regardless, just as they could anything else you owned.
Perhaps I haven't had time to grow a sufficiently impressive tin foil hat, but I am given to think the whole idea is just plain silly.
You might as well pass laws that say you aren't allowed to follow the movement of a grain of silt in the Amazon.
Reality is that which, when we cease to believe in it, still exists. - Philip K Dick
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.
Wasn't he in Weekend at Bernie's?
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
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.
By your arguement, nobody should expect privacy when talking on the phone since they didn't take steps to encrypt their phonecalls so wiretapping should be enirely acceptable. Or if your arguement only applicable to emails?...
There is no more expectation of privacy in a plaintext email than there is in an open-face postcard.
I'm sorry but that is utter nonsense. Maybe not to you, and maybe not to who ever modded your comment up. I don't expect anyone to read my email other than the recipient. That's an expectation. I don't see how anyone who doesn't open my email will be able to read it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but its not a typical part of an email server to display the contents of all messages passing through it onto a monitor somewhere is it?
No, I'd say its absolutely nothing like sending an open 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.
Yeah I don't think this is reasonable either.. thats like saying if you don't want to be searched hide your stuff better. Utter nonsense.
The ruling doesn't say that e-mail is off limits. All the court said was that there is nothing special about e-mail or phone calls. They are still grounds to be seized, but those wanting the information (FBI, prosecutors, etc) must go through due process to obtain them. If they get a warrant they can seize e-mail all they want.
Seems like some judges are starting to understand this whole "electronic medium" stuff.
I wonder if their (grand)kids play WoW?
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
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.
Thank you. This is the point nobody seems to be getting. Nobody is saying that emails can't be used as evidence, but that in order for them to be used, the cops must go through the proper procedures. If they don't use proper procedures to obtain the email, then it is inadmissible in court. Same goes for the telephone. Just as it is trivially easy for the cops to tap your phone, they are not allowed to do it unless they go through the proper procedures for obtaining a warrant. Saying that you should just encrypt your email if you want it to stay private is the same as saying you should build a 20 foot concrete wall around your house if you don't want them doing illegal searches of your property.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
No, you are simply wrong. A carrier (a human being) picking up a post card cannot help but to see the text. He may choose not to read it, but it is visible. An email passing through someone else's router is not going to be seen by human eyes by accident. It will not "flash" across a monitor, it will not be opened and read with out specifically and purposefully being opened.
It's exactly like sending a postcard in that anyone who picks it up (ie whose server forwards it) can read it Thats like saying any postal carrier can open your letter and read it (this too is true) but you don't expect it. They still have to open it unlike a postcard.
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.
Please help metamoderate.
To refresh your memory, think back to the 2006 Duke University lacrosse case. Sophomore Ryan McFadyen, a member of the team and an attendee of the party, sent an email that parodied a bit from the book American Psycho, which is (or at least was) required reading in one of Duke's English Lit classes. The police got their hands on the email and threatened to release it to the press if he didn't admit to witnessing the alledged rape. To his credit, McFayden refused; he was subseqently villified by the press and suspended by the university.
It seems to me that this ruling means that McFadyen now has an excellent chance to pursueing a case against the prosecuter's office.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
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.