Federal Judge Says E-mail Not Protected By 4th Amendment

DustyShadow writes "In the case In re United States, Judge Mosman ruled that there is no constitutional requirement of notice to the account holder because the Fourth Amendment does not apply to e-mails under the third-party doctrine. 'When a person uses the Internet, the user's actions are no longer in his or her physical home; in fact he or she is not truly acting in private space at all. The user is generally accessing the Internet with a network account and computer storage owned by an ISP like Comcast or NetZero. All materials stored online, whether they are e-mails or remotely stored documents, are physically stored on servers owned by an ISP. When we send an e-mail or instant message from the comfort of our own homes to a friend across town the message travels from our computer to computers owned by a third party, the ISP, before being delivered to the intended recipient. Thus 'private' information is actually being held by third-party private companies."" Updated 2:50 GMT by timothy: Orin Kerr, on whose blog post of yesterday this story was founded, has issued an important correction. He writes, at the above-linked Volokh Conspiracy, "In the course of re-reading the opinion to post it, I recognized that I was misreading a key part of the opinion. As I read it now, Judge Mosman does not conclude that e-mails are not protected by the Fourth Amendment. Rather, he assumes for the sake of argument that the e-mails are protected (see bottom of page 12), but then concludes that the third party context negates an argument for Fourth Amendment notice to the subscribers."

Comments

This is not the same everywhere.

[www.sorehands.com]

Recently in the second Circuit, it has been ruled that gmail users do have an expectation of privacy in their e-mail account. http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/Bear1.pdf. Here the Court ruled that the warrant was too broad since it didn't restrict the inspection of e-mails that were unrelated to the investigation.

In light of both rulings, it may not prevent the government inspection, but could be grounds to suppress. Furthermore, the Stored communications act prohibits a warrant for this type of information unless, "offers specific and articulable facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the contents of a wire or electronic communication, or the records or other information sought, are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation."

ECPA

[Anonymous Coward]

I see that the electronic communication privacy act of 1986 is being ignored once again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Communications_Privacy_Act

Re:By this logic...

[DaveV1.0]

Actually, they are private because there is a law saying they are private.

Re:Not the same, in several aspects

[dgatwood]

Indeed, if you'd like a citation that agrees with you, http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/packets001954.shtml is a good place to start.

Re:ok

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Funny, in the UK we had police smash into almost 7,000 safe-deposit boxes.

More than 500 officers smashed their way into thousands of safety-deposit boxes to retrieve guns, drugs and millions of pounds of criminal assets. At least, that's what was supposed to happen."

It was a warrant-expansion, from one of those "seizure of criminals assests" laws, that were started first in the States. Gone ALL wrong, 'tho'.

"Many of the clientele were families who had fled turmoil, pogroms, coups and wars and long had a cultural preference for locking away money and jewels, building up a vehement distrust for the integrity of traditional banks. Here, stepping down the spiral staircase at the back to the darkened boxes below, they felt reassured that their most important possessions were safe."

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1222777/The-raid-rocked-Met-Why-gun-drugs-op-6-717-safety-deposit-boxes-cost-taxpayer-fortune.html