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Obama Administration Wants Your Old Email

Posted by Unknown on from the good-people-have-nothing-to-hide dept.

Nemesisghost wrote to us with a story about attempts to reform the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Under the act, messages left on a server are considered abandoned after six months and are trivially subpoenaed by law enforcement. A group of ISPs is lobbying to extend the protections afforded to locally stored messages to messages stored on third party servers, but the Obama administration is urging Congress not to reform the law.

3 of 639 comments (clear)

  1. Cloud Computing by denshao2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is my old data on a cloud based system considered abandoned if I continue to actively use the system but don't touch some items?

  2. Not totally against this. by mywhitewolf · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So they would require an additional warrant to investigate additional email addresses for emails older than 6 months? if someone had a PO box and a residential post box, does the law require 2 warrants to search each of the post boxes? the legal requirement should match this.

    However I disagree with the consideration that emails on a web server that are 6 months old on are abandoned.. i have 6 year old emails on the web that i still refer to occasionally, with a push to the more efficient cloud computing its important to recognize this, a web based email account should be considered the same as a PO box as far as privacy is concerned.

  3. Abandonment Term by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Let's increase this term to Life + 95 years for e-mails sent by people, 120 years for those sent by corporations (including works for hire). For e-mails that are in the outbox, drafts, or any other unsent mail, it's life + 95 years, or 120 years from the date of creation, whichever is shorter.