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US Wants Courts to OK Warrantless Email Snooping
Erris writes "The Register is reporting that the US government is seeking unprecedented access to private communications between citizens. 'On October 8, 2007, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati granted the government's request for a full-panel hearing in United States v. Warshak case centering on the right of privacy for stored electronic communications. ... the position that the United States government is taking if accepted, may mean that the government can read anybody's email at any time without a warrant. The most distressing argument the government makes in the Warshak case is that the government need not follow the Fourth Amendment in reading emails sent by or through most commercial ISPs. The terms of service (TOS) of many ISPs permit those ISPs to monitor user activities to prevent fraud, enforce the TOS, or protect the ISP or others, or to comply with legal process. If you use an ISP and the ISP may monitor what you do, then you have waived any and all constitutional privacy rights in any communications or other use of the ISP.'"
That's pretty obvious, if you think about it.
"The government".... Does that mean Bush and his mates can monitor all Democratic email traffic? That would be handy for the upcoming elections!
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
In other words, the snagging point is the definition of "expectation of privacy" -- but the situation is really quite simple: The average user simply expects privacy, but the government is trying to force them to abandon that expectation, so they can then go and install ubiquitous e-mail surveillance without violating the letter of the US Constitution. The government is trying to win by arguing semantics, so what I find hardest to believe is that anyone is taking all this blatant skullduggery seriously. I've seen better weaseling from schoolkids trying to avoid homework assignments.
E-mail is electronic, so the message is NOT viewable in transit without making an effort to intercept and decode it, even if the encoding is just ASCII. It's not like mailing a postcard, it's like sending an electrically encoded text message over a packet-switched data network where the only expected viewing point is at the intended recipient's terminal; this is how the e-mail protocol was designed to work. Sure, a malicious party can read it because it's not encrypted, but someone can easily slice open a postal mail envelope and read the contents of that, too.
The bottom line is, since a non-trivial effort has to be made to read the contents, and since the service has always been presented as a "sealed letter", the average user is not unreasonable in expecting privacy.
Also, you can't reasonably expect any privacy in email unless you encrypt its contents. As you didn't provide any more information regarding those rights for the U.S. Citizen, you are doing the same thing as the Parent Poster. I believe the original post was making the argument that the US Citizen, by actions like this is losing those rights. Or at least in danger of doing so.
On privacy, while it is possible to read an unencrypted e-mail, that is not the same as an invitation to do so. It is possible to read my documents in my locked file cabinet, it just requires access and a pull hammer. Does that mean that those can be reviewed by the government? My phone line can be tapped by pretty much anyone, but does that mean it is okay for everyone to do so?
I don't disagree, I think that encryption is a fine thing, and should be used more often. However, I do not believe that my right to privacy exists regardless of the technological possibilities to interfere with it.
They can spy on Democrats, their own people and anyone's and that's why this is more important than firefly diatribes. Without privacy in communications anyone who would bother to stand up for your rights can be identified and punished. Targeting can start in school, before the victim understands the issues or can defend themselves. Anyone who would encourage or aid the dissenter can also be punished. What the current administration is asking for is a tool more complete than Orwell was able to imagine in a paper world.
Imagine, for example, that Martin Luther King Jr. had been identified when he was a Morehouse College, instead of 1961. Do you think he would have been able to withstand such early and sustained attention as he suffered later? As late as the 1980's some asshole decided to prove that King did not deserve his PhD. If a smear campaign had been launched while King was at Morehouse, he would never have made it in to Boston or Crozer. Would it have been possible to recognize a pattern or would society have simply been robbed of a charismatic champion?
It's cases like King's that created the outrage that outlawed domestic spying. We should remember those foul deeds and start the pendulum swinging back towards privacy. What we find today may be worse than what we know about King because technology has made things so much easier to identify, smear and harass.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.