Fourth Amendment Protects Hosted E-mail

Okian Warrior writes "As reported on the EFF website, today the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that the contents of the messages in an email inbox hosted on a provider's servers are protected by the Fourth Amendment, even though the messages are accessible to an email provider. As the court puts it, 'The government may not compel a commercial ISP to turn over the contents of a subscriber's emails without first obtaining a warrant based on probable cause.'"

Comments

Note only "the contents"

[AHuxley]

Read e-mail vs track/sort the ip/to/from headers?
Thats the very old trick that is used. A massive passive database of who is connected to who.
One person gets a real court sneak and peek letter, anyone one connected gets their email lists sorted
- who they are connecting to and so on. So if they dont read they can collect all connecting details they want.

A bit like the NYPD collecting IMEI numbers via an offer to remove a cell phone battery to prevent leakage.
NYPD tracking cell phone owners.
Its the number/ip/logs/connections thats interesting long term, the contents can wait.

Re:ISPs only

[maxume]

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/legal_notices.html