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US DOJ Say They Don't Need Warrants For E-Mail, Chats
gannebraemorr writes "The U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI believe they don't need a search warrant to review Americans' e-mails, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and other private files, internal documents reveal. Government documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and provided to CNET show a split over electronic privacy rights within the Obama administration, with Justice Department prosecutors and investigators privately insisting they're not legally required to obtain search warrants for e-mail."
Keep knock'n back that cool-aid
to be watched by the Government.
Does the same logic mean that the government can not reject FOI requests for emails and can not redact anything in emails?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
And the entirety of the 4th amendment is eliminated by storing your data on somebody else's system since it's no longer considered part of YOUR "persons, houses, papers, and effects" Still like "the cloud"?
It ends when you start sending prosecutors to jail for misconduct.
If you can sniff the network and easily read what I sent then fine. If I secure my emails so they don't appear in plain text then I think you do.
So basically your stance is - if you mail a letter in a sealed envelope, it's fair game, but if the letter is written in code, it's not.
Strange philosophy you have there.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I think you got that backwards, or forgot the /sarcasm tag:
Searches by government are by definition unreasonable, thus they need a warrent.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Safety deposit boxes are different since you have a lock on it.
If I simply give you an unsealed packet of papers, I am assuming the risk you'll had those over to the government if they ask you for them even if I ask you not to. There's no 4th amendment protection under those circumstances. This is analogous to using a web mail provider like gmail, hotmail, etc. where you're asking them to store plain text emails.
OK, then go access my gmail account and post all the content therein online.
Oh, wait, you can't, because that account has a fucking lock on it, that only I (and Google, supposedly) have a key to.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
It ends when prosecutors start sending prosecutors to jail for misconduct.
FTFY, and identified the real problem at the same time.
If self-policing worked, we wouldn't have need for police, you know?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Hell, Boston proved that the Fourth Amendment is no obstacle to searching people's houses without a warrant. Not only did the people there let them do it, but they were happy to let them do it.
Yes. And there's no violation of the 4th Amendment if you willingly wave that right and say, "Come right on in and look around!" The 4th is only about coerced searches.
Slashdot: where obvious jokes are lost.
Voice over phone line is in "clear", and ATT could listen to it. Yet it is still required to have warrant to bug the line. I fail to see what is different with my emails. They are traveling "the infrastructure" in clear, that doesn't mean they are intended to be read by every bystander. As a matter of fact, somebody got a very harsh sentence for intruding onto S. Palin's mailboxes and revealing the content of these emails, so it seems to be quite clear and settled that emails are not to be considered public by default.
The Sarah Palin email hack occurred on September 16, 2008.... The incident was ultimately prosecuted in a U.S. federal court as four felony crimes punishable by up to 50 years in federal prison.[3][4] The charges were three felonies: identity theft, wire fraud, and anticipatory obstruction of justice; and one optional as felony or misdemeanor: intentionally accessing an account without authorization.
If emails etc are not expected to be private, why is it a felony crime to access someone else's email?
Corporations are people, humans aren't.
Money is speech, writing isn't.
Democracy has sold out.
Didn't you get the memo?
movetoamend.org if you don't like it.
The GP said:
when the government does it, that means that it is not unreasonable.
Richard Milhous Nixon (who was forced to resign from the presidency of the United States due to his many flagrantly illegal acts) said:
Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.
Please don't speak for me and please don't include me in the group "everyone". I don't think the GP was being fucking retarded and counterproductive. Even though this is Slashdot, the GP's wit was not lost to all readers.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Wouldn't the solution to "the e-mail problem" be to store your e-mail in a country with decent privacy protections and access it using SSL/TLS? It won't won't prevent the US government from accessing your e-mail if they really want to, but it is a start.
I really shouldn't have used someone else's email address for this account.
The gun issue not withstanding, the Government's attack on the Second Amendment is horrific and sets up really bad precidence for the Fourth Amendment, First Amendment, as well as others.
FOURTH AMENDMENT
Just think: In order to exercise your Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure, the Government needs to perform a background check on you to ensure that you are an upstanding citizen.
FIRST AMENDMENT
In order to exercise your First Amendment rights, you are subject to a three day waiting period. You may only use media types approved by the Government. Discourses conducted through media not sanctioned is a felony.
etc.