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Feds Shy Away From Raiding Email Without Warrant
nonprofiteer writes "In December, a federal judge ruled that the 4th amendment applies to email and that the feds cannot go after it without a warrant. (We have Smilin' Bob to thank for that.) Though the federal judge's decision only applies to the four states in his jurisdiction, it looks like federal agencies are applying it nationally. An internal email written by the IRS general counsel cites the law and says that its collectors can no longer get the contents of suspected tax cheats' email by sending letters to their ISPs, though it can get non-content information, like who they email and how they pay for their accounts."
The CIA wont just do it anyway.
They already have the email traffic, so why bother getting permission to look at them again?
Thank bob for a little nudge in the right direction for online privacy.
It's good to hear the US government isn't fighting the courts tooth and nail whenever there's a judgement against them. I with the same were true in Canada. The Harper government is hell bent on getting around a number of court orders on a variety of policies. They have their vision, and nothing will stop them -- not the will of the people, not the recommendations of scientists and experts, not statistics, and certainly not the objections of people in foreign nations (including the US. Thanks to the Texas conservatives for supporting the Canadian public's view that a prison state is not the way to go.)
The Harper government thinks a majority is a dictatorship.
I refuse to call it the Canadian government because there is nothing Canadian about the way it's treating the farmers, the stewardesses, the postal union, the medical cannabis patients, ...
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The FBI will have to get the goods on people from Mark Zuckerberg, he's got the dirt on everyone.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Walter White can live in peace until the Season 5 starts.
We've had a technical solution to this for over a decade which, for some reason, has never become a standard. It's kind of sad when a legal solution beats a technical one.
Why do we still allow our correspondence to be transmitted in plain text?
If they want access to somebody's email without getting a warrant, all they need to do is pull the person over and search their smart phone for some bogus reason. Cause apparently that's still perfectly legal!
Glad to see the judge did his job, and glad to see that the fed at least appears to be following his ruling.
So if the email is older than 6 months they can request it w/o warrant? If my phone record is older than 6 months can they view that? Sounds like a step in the right direction, but a partial victory at best, i believe the feds can wait to charge somebody with a crime well past 6 months, whether the evidence is still there is another story.
Also, WHO you call isn't accessible without a warrant either, so I don't know, seems like a partial victory.
"An internal email written by the IRS general counsel cites the law and says that its collectors can no longer get the contents of suspected tax cheats' email by sending letters to their ISPs, though it can get non-content information, like who they email and how they pay for their accounts."
What if the ISP says 'not without a warrant' on this too?
they'll just get it from the traffic cops phone-sucking machines after they pull over the perp for a non-existent traffic violation.
The IRS has the statutory authority to ask a judge for a warrant if they start a criminal investigation. It's not clear why they didn't do that here. The problem may be that they want to find the money, not prosecute the guy, and that's not a valid use of search warrant authority.
An interesting point is that the consumer protection agencies, the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission, don't have statutory authority to even request a search warrant.
I think you're being naive, if you're seriously hoping ISP would stand up and protect your rights. It's not a profitable thing to do and it is most certainly not in their interest (it cost money to fight this sort of things against the government.) With majority of the market being service by just a few major ISP, there's no incentive for them to go the extra mile to keep you as their customer.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
As in who you call and when with a telephone.
It's like them being able to stand at the post office and read the exposed front of the envelopes containing your mail. It doesn't require a search warrant.
Be sure to check your ISP's terms of service. They can waive your 4th Amendment Reasonable Expectation of Privacy so the police don't need a warrant.
I fail to see how contrasting the Canadian governments reaction to court rulings with US reactions is off topic. SlashDot is international. Of course I'm going to put a Canadian spin on things.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I thought that had been repealed something like ten years ago.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
The government seeing the email is one thing; using it in court as admissible evidence is another
And they would bother doing this "court" thing ... why?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
They'll give nothing up without a warrant, and will notify me if not gagged.
IRS is only conerned with items of income, and there are forms for that. My email might have reciepts, but so would the site that I have the account with.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
"In December, a federal judge ruled"
Um... Is it me... or is December not here yet? So either this is a REALLY OLD article or they somehow invented a time machine, went about two months into the future and came back to give us this good news? I don't get it..... Maybe it has something to do with the 2013 Delorian???
Our emails have been secretly monitored for quite some time. "Shying away" from such actions is merely on paper and PR. If you believe otherwise, you're a fool.
Where to start?
The article says the R.O. in this case "asked" the ISP for the information. That can be done a number of ways. The most informal is to, you know, ask.
If an R.O. wants to find out about you and you live in an apartment complex, they'll ask the complex management for a look at your application. 20 years ago, the management would hand it over. Nowadays, in the aftermath of the Revenue Reconciliation Act of 1998 that, in many ways, neutered R.Os, nobody complies with simple requests.
If a recordkeeper wants a piece of paper to cover themselves for giving up the privacy of their customer, that's easy. It's called a "Notice to Exhibit Books and Records" and the R.O. can fill out one and hand that over. Nowadays, those get rejected, too.
The involvement of Counsel in this particular case means that the R.O. actually sent a summons for information to the ISP. If the summons hadn't been overbroad (asking for the text of emails), then there wouldn't have been a problem.
Here's what gets me - Why did the R.O. want the text of emails, anyway? It's enough to know the basic details provided at signup. Generally, unlawful tax avoiders try to make everything difficult for the R.O. by refusing to hand over even simple information or avoiding contact all together. Getting the basic sign-up info would provide the R.O. with a (probably) valid street address and credit card info. That's plenty to build on.
My two most successful ways to find people, back when I did this job: First, summons the persons mother. Mom generally knows where their kid is. Second, if you know the general neighborhood, summons the nearest schools for the emergency contact information provided for their kids. Even tax cheats tell the truth (daytime location/employer and all phone numbers) when it comes to letting the school know how they can be contacted in case of an emergency involving their kids.
tl;dr - RO issues overbroad summons and gets slapped. BFD and not unusual.
They will adhere to the ruling, but one thing jumps out at me. They allow "non-content" information which includes who you email. How is that not content? Paying method is obviously not content and IRS related clearly. However, allowing to see WHO I email seems a slippery slope. It seems it opens the door to guilt by association warrants. Maybe I'm wrong.
Yeah, like the Subject, To: and From: of all email, and every URL they load, including any GET form parms. This information is aggregated, burned to a CD, and handed to an FBI agent, so there is no electronic record of the transfer.
ObDisclaimer: AFAIK I am not being monitored by the FBI, but who knows? I'm an outspoken privacy and freedom advocate and I have had a job which required an FBI background check. I do, however, know someone who is responsible for handling the FBI-required monitoring of one or more of their ISP customer[s].
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"