Slashdot Mirror
IRS Can Read Your Email Without Warrant
kodiaktau writes "The ACLU has issued a FOIA request to determine whether the IRS gets warrants before reading taxpayers' email. The request is based on the antiquated Electronic Communication Protection Act — federal agencies can and do request and read email that is over 180 days old. The IRS response can be found at the ACLU's website. The IRS asserts that it can and will continue to make warrantless requests to ISPs to track down tax evasion. Quoting: 'The documents the ACLU obtained make clear that, before Warshak, it was the policy of the IRS to read people’s email without getting a warrant. Not only that, but the IRS believed that the Fourth Amendment did not apply to email at all. A 2009 "Search Warrant Handbook" from the IRS Criminal Tax Division’s Office of Chief Counsel baldly asserts that "the Fourth Amendment does not protect communications held in electronic storage, such as email messages stored on a server, because internet users do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in such communications." Again in 2010, a presentation by the IRS Office of Chief Counsel asserts that the "4th Amendment Does Not Protect Emails Stored on Server" and there is "No Privacy Expectation" in those emails.'"
IRS good, but Russians, Chinese, Iranians bad, yes?
Live in fear only of half the world, but the IRS, we should be comfortable with THEM making our lives miserable, got it!
We look !! We will find !! We will get YOU !!
obviously you have nothing to hide...
Does that mean we can read their email?
I certainly expect my email to be private. Okay, I expect it SHOULD be private. But the bottom line is if you are storing your data on other people's equipment, you have no guarantee of anything.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
The IRS has a secret legal opinion that they CAN use lethal drone operations on a citizen noncombatant living in the United States.
We don't have reasonable expectation of privacy to our electronic communications, but apparently the govt does. On top of that we pay for it.
With this kind of "No Expectation of Privacy" thing that comes up (re: emails, phones messages, etc.) -- Hypothetically, what if someone did a scientific survey of U.S. residents and asked: "Do you expect that your stored email messages are private from the government? Do expect that the text messages stored in your phone are private from the government?". Then would there be any possibility that the results of such a survey would be usable in a future court case to knock down such foolishness?
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Really, if you're not encrypting your email, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy. If your communications are in plaintext, being passed around from server to server in plaintext, it would be absolutely stupid to expect that would be in any way private. It's about as private as a postcard: no envelope, all information plainly visible to anyone that handles it..
The US tax code needs a massive overhaul and simplification, and the IRS simply needs to be dismantled.
Maybe I should send that as an email so the IRS will read it.
You must gather your party before venturing forth.
Where does this stop? If the IRS can search your mail, why not the other agencies. Maybe the forestry department thinks you have printed the document on paper which was from an endangered pine tree.
I guess if you had encrypted that email, you would also be expected to provided a decryption key because of some other law about citizens having access to encryption technology. Shit, I bet even rot13 is considered an encryption technology.
I heard about a story about some guy who was growing pot inside his house and out of view. Apparently, if a cop can smell the pot, he has "probable cause" to search the premises. The case went to the Supreme Court because the cops brought a drug sniffing dog, which indicated that there was pot inside, and that was "probable cause". This case seems to have lost, but just like "The Miranda Rights", which were quickly regressed within 2 years of that ruling.
By default, email is plaintext. It isn't sent in an envelope, it's more of an electronic postcard. You aren't guaranteed a particular routing, so email may pass through any number of ISPs of varying nationality, legality, and morals. You want privacy? Use encryption.
In snailmail, enveloped mail has an expectation of privacy, postcards less so (if at all). Email is not snailmail. All it takes is a packet sniffer in the right place to read your mail, not even much of a cracking package. So there is no de facto privacy. The only expectation of privacy comes from people who keep expecting email to behave like snailmail, and it's a false expectation.
The case that the fourth amendment applies to unencrypted data sent across arbitrary connections is weak. I'm no fan of the IRS, and they are often above the law and a law unto themselves, but I don't think that applies here.
People who live in glass houses shouldn't walk and text.
The IRS gonna read yo' mail!!!
Only after they get in line behind the FBI, NSA, DHS, any bored state cop, any bored local cop, any corporation that feels like it, your ISP, etc.
But dare to be a private non-corporation-affiliated citizen and we'll thrown your ass in jail forever for even accessing information public information, you terrorist motherfucker!!
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
So can Google.
If I didn't have an expectation of privacy, I wouldn't password protect it.
This citizen received 300 emails from ebay and 150 emails from Bodog and Betonsports.eu.
Elivated likelihood of major tax evasion.
Time for an encrypted email service.
a new renewable energy source. All we have to do is put some magnets on our founding father and the amount of energy they exert spinning in their graves over this and things like this would power the whole united states with some to spare.
Relocate.
Citizenship?
Renounce.
Bug out now, Mr. and Mrs. America. Before they lock the gate.
Or? You didn't think all that TSA and "no fly list" was to keep people out, did you?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Well, the IRS has no reasonable expectation of my paying taxes either.
If the IRS can read email without a warrant, then it should be EASY to convict nearly every overpaid CEO in the USA who hides their money via creative accounting and tax dodges. Why have there been no convictions then for the 2008 Economic Crash where the fatcat bankers stole trillions and then got free billions to cover their losses? Surely that money can be traced and found and certain wall street types convicted if the IRS is reading *their* emails.
Oh, but they aren't -- because those people own the government. Because those people are "too big to fail". Because those people have friends in high places and lots of lawyers to defend them. They aren't easy targets, even though they are big targets.
No no, prosecutors want easy convictions from people with no means to defend themselves, using the same tactics as high school bullies -- pick on the weak.
The IRS reading your mail? Pfft. It's to keep the proles in line. The elite have their own laws and their own justice that flows from power. The rest of us just try to survive under the heel of their boot.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
So, when you have TLS and a private mailserver, how does this work exactly? Who are they tapping?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I don't get all these government arguments for warrantless this or warrantless that. Shouldn't we err on the side of the constitution? Is it that hard to get a warrant??!
Of-course this is IRS, they are above the law, they don't have to comply with any laws, their entire operation is completely lawless, not based on any laws. They are used to violating your private property rights, that's what income taxes are - a violation of your private property rights. They are used to discriminating against people, that's what graduated ('progressive') income taxes are - discrimination against individuals, the laws are not applied equally. They are used to taking away your freedom of movement.
Saying that your email is not private is not something out of character for IRS.
Just because some third party hosts your emails it doesn't mean they are not your property, there is your NAME on it, the company gave you your space. Is your BANK ACCOUNT your property?
You can't handle the truth.
Do I get privacy if my mail is stored on a mail server in my house that I own? What if it is a colocated server that I own? What if it is a rented server? What if it is a VPS?
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
So why do we need passwords to log in then? And let's stop calling it email, and call it e-postcards..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Be careful about what you put into writing; if it will be read your bestest friend, it will also be read worstest enemy. Tried and true security strategy used for millennia.
The Sarah Palin email hacker should have used that line! "Mrs. Palin has no privacy expectation". Might have saved him from his misdemeanor conviction of "unauthorized access to a computer".
Shouldn't the government be transparent and release emails over 180 days old? Especially non-critical stuff: Interior department, Education, Housing, etc.
FBI, NSA, DHS, any bored state cop
I don't worry much about law enforcement or intelligence services. Outfits like the IRS or the EPA are a much bigger threat to my life.
Have you ever rented a home? By your logic, you have no expectation of privacy in a rented property or hotel room. You might be interested to know that it's already well established that (outside of television) your landlord can't even consent to a police search of your property, unless they meet the normal requirements for such consent such as if they also live there. Your email being stored on a server is like that, you're renting the space from the server owner, according to the terms they set forth when you signed up for the account. Unless those terms say they can go through your email or grant permission for others to go through your email, this is still illegal. I'll admit, laws regarding the physical world and the internet don't line up 1:1, but suggesting that there should be no privacy at all on the internet because of the way the internet works is a bit nuts.
> "A 2009 "Search Warrant Handbook" from the IRS Criminal Tax Division’s Office of Chief Counsel"
Yes, criminal, in the same way England was being criminal, abusing power to search.
Exactly the same. Anyone in government reading this? You are behaving in exactly the same way as the evil government we shucked off. Yes, you, you ass. You.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Especially after you trolled us 100's of times last month http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3581857&cid=43276741 in March 2013, but you forgot to submit that one as anonymous coward like you did all the others idiot, and instead you used your registered username here. You got played: You played yourself, moron.
Is it really that unreasonable to get a warrant before doing the following activities?
Reading your email?
Tracking your car?
Tracking your phone calls?
Tracking your cell phone?
Tracking your every movement?
Entering your private home?
Entering your private car?
In today's society it is highly difficult to function without these capabilities, yet we are expected to check our constitutional rights out the door when we want to operate as normal members of society. Expecting nothing more than asking a judge to review if law enforcement has a reasonable reason to invade your privacy for legal purposes - as the constitution demands - should not even be a debate.
the government has no laws. It is not by the people, but against the people.
Biden says the chance of the U.S. Gov becoming oppressive is virtually nil.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
addressed to me. Most people respect that in return. Does that count as a reasonable expectation of privacy? Could we apply the same standard to e-mail?
"Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder."
The 180-day limit is based on an antiquated legal standard, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which was signed into law in 1986 - more than 25 years ago. At the time, email was still in its infancy, and "cloud"-based email providers like Yahoo, GMail, etc. simply didn't exist.
Efforts are underway to update the act so that, among other things, law enforcement will need to obtain a warrant anytime they want to access email. But those updates aren't law yet, so the old statute still applies.
If I put a lock on my house, car, toolshed, etc... I expect that the contents are to be considered private.
If I put a password (a modern day lock) then I consider the material behind the password to be considered private.
It's also sort of like a phone conversation. I call someone and the conversation is considered to be between the caller and callee. What the callee does with the conversation is up for debate BUT only that call can be leaked. That callee can't access all my other conversations... thus the contents of calls should be considered private save for the other party.
So when did email become public?
In this day and age our Government needs ensure our rights are protected, not continue to erode them...
zomg that's so 90's
Let's see all of the IRS's emails..............or not.....
.....more reasonable every day.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I had just changed my email sig to "Fuck you IRS"
Tis sad, and very sad....
We had a Constitution,
Now we have but laws,
That make it null and void,
Tis bad, and very bad....
Before anyone spouts off with the old, "if you have nothing to hide..." line, please read this recent study out of the Harvard Law Review, entitled "The Dangers of Surveillance":
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2239412
Oh no they can't, I encrypt all of my emails with ROT13...
If you're using GNUPG or Enigmail* Thunderbird plugin, just what do they expect to find in the gibberish metadata?
[*] http://www.enigmail.net/home/index.php
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They are partially correct. Since mail is generally sent in plain text, and stored on public servers, then there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. It's as if you mailed a post card. The mail carrier can read that, or anyone who happened to maybe look over the mail carrier shoulder. But once you put it into a sealed envelop, breaching the envelope is a federal offense without a warrant. If you encrypt your email to everyone (unfortunately no one does) then it is equivalent to it being mailed in an envelope and should be protected by the 4th amendment with a pretty strong expectation of privacy.
Since e-mails are public, anything that the IRS or any IRS employee is doing via e-mail is most definitely public knowledge with NO expectation of privacy.
Let's see an immediate dump of every personal, non-work related e-mail they've ever received or sent...
Warrant? Don't need no stinking warrant, hand em over bub....
Oh look what a shock...the third party doctrine striking again...who'd have guessed?
This is what we deserve when we depend so much on third parties for everything even when it makes little to no difference where the data is stored. With a little effort and slight inconvinence it does not have to be this way.
Run your own mail server, run your own web site. Say no to aggregation of control within "the cloud" where the US constitution is just a mirage.
can't be anything private, right?
I hate to be reasonable, but exactly how is this an issue (especially for the average Slashdot reader?) There's a long list of organizations that would be pleased as peaches to go through your email. If it's a serious problem, then 1) never keep email longer than a week old (so, yes, unfortunately, you're going to have to learn to not use your email account as a treasure trove of personal information that would ruin you if it fell into the wrong hands - a popular thing nowadays.) and 2) for God's sakes, you shouldn't be on a "free" webmail system at all ever for any reason, even if you adhere to number point 1.
What's that you say? "But not everyone knows how to build their own email server!" Yes, well, everyone SHOULD know how to read and follow directions - setting up a server with an MTA is one of the most common technical tasks in the world and the net is flush with forums that'll show you how to do it. If you have time to screw around on Facebook, you have time to set up a server and email on Azure or Amazon. If that's too hard to do, privacy isn't your biggest problem.
Since it does not mark the email as "Read".
When David Kernell accessed Sarah Palin's email without permission he received a year in prison, when the IRS does it, it's not a crime. I think there may be a communication issue on what constitutes a crime.
Disagreeing with you does not make me a troll.
Canada now requires a wiretap warrant to ready stored texts on pohone-company servers, which is harder to get than a regular one. See http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/03/27/technology-telus-text-messages-scc-decision.html [www.cbc.ca]
The Ontario appeal court separately ruled that one needs to put a password/passcode on your phone to demonstrate that you have and expect privacy in the data it contains. See http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2013/02/21/ottawa-cell-phone-users-beware.html [www.cbc.ca]
Logically, a police force anywhere should need a wiretap warrant to read your (electronic) mail, and you have a duty to password-protect your email (:-)) At the moment this hasn't been tested in court, even in Canada. --dave
davecb@spamcop.net
http://informaticall.altervista.org/how-to-be-diet/
I would hope they could, for the most part my email is plain old pop3
The Senate Judiciary Committee had passed a bill that would require a warrant for any email interception. However it seems this didn't make it through congress in the lame-duck session.
It is very upsetting that the Netflix video data sharing bill did.
http://www.techspot.com/news/51175-congress-cuts-amendment-banning-warrantless-email-snooping.html
I gave my Congressman a raft of shit over this.
So I guess those living in apartment/condos/highrise buildings do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy with their mailbox?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I have my email program delete all emails after 2 weeks. That definitely falls within the 180 "safe" days.
It amazes me how often I hear this as an excuse to do something that shouldn't be done. Apparently to the US Government, you never have any reasonable expectation of privacy as long as there is a computer involved, despite in modern times, a huge portion of our life and financial information being chronicled there.
How can we not have a reasonable expectation of privacy for our email any less than snail mail? We don't expect the people running the servers delivering or receiving our e-mail actually reading it, just like we don't expect postal workers opening our letters and reading it. People would be outraged if they learned that server admins were literally reading their email. We do have a reasonable expectation of privacy, here.
Just a little googling and I found: IMAPCrypt
Looks like a decent utility to automate running daily... it will go through and encrypt (via PGP), emails over any age you specify.
Then when they go in, tada. Encrypted! Now they have to go request the backups, if there were any going that far back.
Another option would be a script or filter that moves everything to your local folders at home.
This sig intentionally left blank.
What if people start getting spam asking about fake big sums of money they received in private transactions/payments? Your mail is becoming a vulnerability not because the software that you uses to read it, but the "automatic" action that will take the new readers of your mail, like social engineering targetting the 2nd row of spectators.
Are the contents of my safety deposit box available to the IRS? That represents "data" stored on "other people's equipment".
BlameBillCosby.com
They hate the taxes so much, and now they have to root for the "liberal" ACLU actually doing something to the IRS....
C|N>K
Oh boy here we go with the "eye for an eye" BS.
Sometimes it's called "justice," bro.
Well, blame Bush if you want, you stupid idiots, but this is all yours and your little brown god's doing. Yes, healthcare for everyone! Yahoo!!
Nasty Pelosi said "we have to pass the bill so we can see what's in the bill." Well, thank you Mrs Stalin!
that the US Constituion doesn't apply to modern technology. If it did then the Founding Fathers would have mentioned it in an Amendment. Now just get over it.
No, it's called "let's vindicate their actions by doing the same fucking thing, that'll show em."
Like every government agency in existence, the IRS can CLAIM whatever they want. However, if they are ever taken to court they will be bound by whatever the current case law says.
So by your logic, the only airplane that is truly safe to ever fly in are the ones owned by Quantas.
listing the home addresses of their senior execs. and pictures of their kids.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. In the Bible, 2000 years ago, tax collectors and sinners were in the same category of scumbags.
A sufficiently advanced simulation is indistinguishable from reality.
`Canada just amended this and declared that emails are private just like other communication. this should be obvious. Sorry about this USA. you used to such a great country...
That cartoon is garbage.
The IRS is asserting it doesn't need warrant, not that it can be 'misled' into incorrectly asking for a warrant from the wrong place. It's complicit into the deceit that it doesn't need a warrant.
Email *is* private, if it wasn't private they wouldn't have to ask the ISPs to get it for them, and they wouldn't have to have a legal advice that says 'get a warrant if the ISP might resist'. The ISP has a legal obligation to resist those requests, that data is private. The IRS clearly understands the illegality if their advice depends on how cooperative the ISP is.
Cartoon form doesn't make it right. The IRS is not some innocent party in these illegal searches, it's the active participant, in effect the IRS is the girl in the cartoon, deliberately misleading the law to get a search that it legally cannot get.
Why are we even discussing this, it's a private communication and is none of your or their business. If it was I'd have 'CC'd the IRS into the conversation, now it seems they've taken powers they don't have to BCC themselves into every email!
IRS logic on what "reasonable expectation of privacy" mean:
1. If you are paranoid and think that privacy does not really exist in this world then you don't have any expectation of privacy whatsoever. Which means they can do anything they want.
2. If you aren't paranoid then you have nothing to hide. Which means...
If the majority of people expect email to be private, doesn't that become reasonable by default?
Funny how the Law in different countries have tried to make sure that paper mail is supposed to be pretty-much sacrosanct, no matter who handles it, but now have no problem to claiming that email that is not directly in transit is free for grabs.
As for the "must encrypt to get some privacy" advocates: If the simple opening of an paper envelope is considered braking the Law in regard to the sacrosanctity of it, why than isn't doing extra effort as in using a computer to search for and display a specific message not ?
If you do not do that effort (for paper or email) there is no way you can read the contents of a mail, paper or electronic, by accident.
From my POV the "with a computer" prefix is here also used to change the rules of the game (ref: patents).
Typical of the government today. Constitution getting in your way? Just ignore if possible. Otherwise, argue the most abstract interpretation possible to a federal judge that will rubber stamp it into common practice.
George Orwell. The pigs are more equal.
No, it's called wake them the fuck up by exposing every little detail of their petty lives to the rest of the world, embarrass the fuck out of them, make them realize that "oh fuck, e-mails are private!".
It's what investigative reporters have done for a very long time to expose corrupt and petty bureaucrats on a massive scale.
If I download email regularly to my personal storage device in my home, there will be nothing 180 days or older on an ISP server. (Webmail BAD.) Of course I'm assuming that they do not keep caches of all email received around for 6 mo, which may be a bad assumption. Once in my home, any agency should need a warrant.
which states that .. and not all judges are known to rule by the spirit but rather by the literal word of the law so ...
Art. 29.
Het briefgeheim is onschendbaar.
De wet bepaalt welke agenten verantwoordelijk zijn voor de schending van het geheim der aan de post toevertrouwde brieven.
roughly : secrety of a letter can't be violated, the law dictates what agents can be allowed to 'violate' the secret (privacy) of letters who were delivered to the post office
any creative lawyer would see there's nothing about letters deliverd to the hotmail or google servers in there
i have my doubts there
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?