Why DOJ Didn't Need a "Super Search Warrant" To Snoop On Fox News' E-mail

awaissoft writes "If attorney general Eric Holder wanted to perform even a momentary Internet wiretap on Fox News' e-mail accounts, he would have had to persuade a judge to approve what lawyers call a 'super search warrant.' A super search warrant's requirements are exacting: Intercepted communications must be secured and placed under seal. Real-time interception must be done only as a last resort. Only certain crimes qualify for this technique, the target must be notified, and additional restrictions apply to state and local police conducting real-time intercepts. But because of the way federal law was written nearly half a century ago, Holder was able to obtain a normal search warrant — lacking those extensive privacy protections — that allowed federal agents to secretly obtain up to six years of email correspondence between Fox News correspondent James Rosen and his alleged sources."

Comments

Re:Not News to Fox

[icebike]

Under the law they used for the warrant, they didn't have to notify until 90 days after the termination of the intercept.
But since the intercept was continuous, and for all we know, still on-going, they never notified about Rosen's mail.

The whole article is a mess of obfuscation until you read to the bottom of the the story where it FINALLY gets to the point:

The gradual supplanting of the POP protocol, where messages typically were not left on mail servers and available for law enforcement, by the newer server-based IMAP protocol also encouraged this shift.

Any mail you keep on a service for more than 6 months is considered abandoned, and fair game. This means ANY IMAP account outside of your premises is wide open to seizure.
Which means every google/microsoft/yahoo mail account is fair game under the obsolete 68 law unless you take careful pains to only and always use POP, and never leave a copy on the server.

The law is clearly being deliberately misused, and the mail is not abandoned, as long as the account is being used.