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Bipartisan Bill Would Mandate Warrant To Search Emails

jfruh writes: Bills were introduced into both the House and Senate yesterday that would amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, requiring a warrant to search Americans' email messages stored on third-party servers even if they're more than 180 days old. The current version of the law was passed in 1986, and was written in an environment where most email users downloaded emails to their computer and erased them after reading them.

14 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Good to see. by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    America calls itself the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.

    We need to make sure laws are in place to protect our freedom, even if it does mean reduced security. We as a culture should be brave enough to deal with the fact we may have less than perfect protection as so we can have our liberty.

    We have law enforcement groups doing their job, and asking for more powers, because they want to do their job to the best of their abilities. However we as a culture will need to go. We know this could cost lives, but our freedom is more important, than the risks.

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    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    1. Re:Good to see. by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Its sad that a bill is even required to make sure this happens.

    2. Re:Good to see. by tysonedwards · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The concern is that Emails while *intended* to be private by it's users, Emails are traditionally sent plaintext without any sort of envelope to prevent casual snooping while it changes hands across possibly dozens of devices that are designed explicitly to inspect said data for various purposes. Further, there is typically not signing employed to detect "tampering" or outright forgery on legitimate emails. Under the eyes of the law, there must be an expectation of privacy for privacy to exist. A plaintext, non-direct, persistent communication mechanism that relies on various other devices inspecting it at various levels of detail to determine whether it is suitable for delivery to the recipient doesn't technically qualify in the eyes of the law.

      Emails are the post card of the digital age.

      This proposed bill is designed to acknowledge that, sure, mail carriers *can* just read your mail while delivering it, it is after all right there next to the address, but we are going to be telling them that that is really, really bad, and if they do it that we won't like them one bit. The other piece here is that there is mail that has already been delivered, that resides on non-government servers. This proposed bill says that you can no longer have free reign to that data (they didn't, really as they needed to request it from companies who typically said "piss off", but for the sake of argument, let's say that they did), this bill says "get a warrant before asking".

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      Thirty four characters live here.
    3. Re:Good to see. by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The Supreme Court has migrated base rights into new areas of technology in the past:

      - Freedom of the press doesn't mean literally a printing press anymore, control of which was a back door way of controlling speech even if there was no direct censorship.

      - The SC ruled infrared scanners that passively looked through walls required a warrant, as the founding fathers, and Americans' expectations, were such that an area was secure from warrantless examination.

      As Americans move more of their life into the online virtual world, they carry with them the same expectation of privacy from warrantless search. The Supreme Court should overturn the outdated loophole that is from the telephone days, that you have no reasonable expectation of privacy in data held by 3rd parties.

      Well, no, everybody has that expectation. The King of England would have abused it, and warrant requirements would have been included in the Constitution.

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      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  2. Re:Who are you? by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nah it is general politics.
    The general population is getting weary of government surveillance.
    The President got on record defending such actions.
    So the republicans will side with this just to go against the President.
    The Democrats need to distant themselves from the incumbent president so the party will have new talking points during the next election, as position themselves as more moderate than their GOP counterparts.

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    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  3. largely a procedural encumberance. by nimbius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If a warrant is required, its generally granted. If its not granted, the FISA courts could be used. and if the FISA courts with their 99% rate of acceptance should fail, then most multinational corporations have no objection to forfeiting every document youve written and word you've uttered to local state and federal authorities on principal. In some cases, like telecom, theyre outright exempted from prosecution through blatant legislative mandate and their own kangaroo system of arbitration courts. in others, you'll never know they were the ones to divulge your information thanks to a rats nest of NDA agreements and lack of transparency.

    Looking to congress and senate to ensure your security and freedom on the internet is as blind and misplaced as looking to the executioner to ensure your meals at the prison are healthy. https://prism-break.org/ is a collection of open source projects and applications with the altruistic, express intent to preserve your security and safety. Its not governed by politics, or election cycles, or "terror." It doesnt concede to stakeholders, doesnt serve to appease shareholders, and doesnt ask for your personal information. The internet doesnt need a bill or writ of law to protect its users, because its users have been iron clad in an armory of their own device for more than 30 years. Use crypto, study privacy, and enjoy a free internet.

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    Good people go to bed earlier.
  4. Good ... by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because the bill was idiotic ... wow, it's been on a server, you must have abandoned it and therefor we don't need a warrant.

    Right, because it should be totally OK for police to rifle through your stuff without legal authorization.

    It's about time they started enforcing the 4th amendment ... maybe we're finally starting to see some common sense and sanity applied to this stuff.

    Now if they can tackle the institutionally authorized perjury which is "parallel construction", we'll be getting somewhere.

    It's time to remind law enforcement that they are not, in fact, above the law.

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    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  5. Re:Who are you? by cyberchondriac · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How do you figure? That's a crock. Overall, the country has shifted more left, not right, over the last many decades, which has simply brought more people out from the Right to complain; so the right feels more extreme. If you're too young to remember what it was like in the '70s or '80s, you might have that mistaken impression that this is a more conservative country than it was before. It's not. And insane far left wingers match insane far right wingers. There are too many far wingers, period.

    1) Government is larger than ever before. There are more social programs than ever before.
    2) Politicians discuss/argue and vote over gay marriage, something even Democrats would not have touched with a 20 ft pole 20+ years ago. The fact that right wingers cite religious objections isn't anything new, and both parties would've balked at the notion.
    3) Media: A really good way to get the pulse of the times. Have you even watched television, or listened to radio? What would've have been vehemently censored before is now commonplace, and no topic is off limits. There are dedicated channels for minorities and alternate lifestyles. Media is much more liberal than ever. (despite protestations from the likes of Dan Quayle)

    Obamacare was rejected by the right because they were shut out of much of the process by a majority D 111th congress, the public option was dropped, and because it was rushed through; no one knew exactly what was in it's 10,000+ pages.

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    Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
  6. This is a good start by davidwr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Better would be one that required the same for searching headers and other meta-data for all live and store-and-forward communication, including snail-mail, and one which would ban retention of this information by carriers after it is no longer needed for delivery- or billing-, or legitimate tracking purposes.

    In other words, stop the US Post Office from keeping the to/from information from mailed items for more than a few weeks after the item was delivered (you need to keep it a few weeks in case a customer claims it was never delivered). Similar, force phone companies to delete calling data after the bill has been paid and any bill-dispute time-period has elapsed UNLESS the customer has signed up to have the carrier keep such records.

    Is this gonna happen soon? Of course not - it may never happen as long as our country exists in its current form (i.e. all bets are off if there is ever a revolution - which I am *NOT* advocating) - but I still want it.

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    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  7. Re:Who are you? by poetmatt · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Claiming that politics have gone in ANY direction is a facetious statement at best and misinformed, to say the least.

    This country is not any more leftist than it is any more rightist which it isn't. This country is corporatist, which means that whether anyone anywhere politically is in power the vested interests are going to support corporations which benefit either way.

    So whether you have democrat a, republican b, it doesn't really matter unless you fail to understand where the real politics is.

  8. Fantastic! A warrant is required by DickBreath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A secret warrant.
    From a secret court.
    Under authority of secret laws.
    Or alternately secret interpretations of secret laws.
    The secret warrant has a secrecy requirement to gag anyone from telling of the warrant's existence.
    Breaching the secrecy can result in secret arrests in the middle of the night by secret agents of agencies that must remain secret.
    Any secret trials may use secret evidence and secret testimony that the defense is not allowed to see or refute.


    But at least a warrant will be required. Whew! I feel safer already.

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    I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
  9. Re:Who are you? by gurps_npc · · Score: 1, Insightful
    You are incorrect and missing sever facts.

    First of all, their are two major difference between the parties, that are affecting your thoughts:

    1) Liberals call out and vilify their extremists. The Conservatives ELECT them. This is a major difference. There is no liberal equivalent in national politics of Palin, Cruz, Bachmann, or Christine O'donnell.

    2) The Democrat party accepts moderates and centrists, while the Republicans kick them out.

    This gives the false impression that the country has shifted left. No. The country has stayed the same, the GOP has become extremists.

    The government is NOT larger than ever before - when you adjust for GDP. Inflation is the wrong measure. GDP is the right one. The bigger the economy, the more we need to spend.

    You mistook prejudice and discrimination for conservative. The fact that the fight over such things has moved from race to sex is not a move from conservative to liberal or vice versa. Or are you seriously going to argue that being racist is a real, current conservative idea?

    Finally, the far right has consistently and falsely argued that the media is against them. That is bull and always has been. The honest truth is the media is no different today than it has ever been - it tries to be impartial but fails .

    I love your silly argument about Obamacare. There is no such thing. There is ROMNEYCARE, that Obama was forced to accept instead of what he really wanted.

    It was rejected by the right because it was proposed by OBAMA, not by a GOP. It was an entirely partisan rejection. Lots of people knew exactly what was in it's pages. Merely passing a big law is not a problem - not when it was based on an existing law that was proven.

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    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
  10. Re:Who are you? by orgelspieler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sadly, I suspect you're right. Just like how when Obama said he was pro-vaccines you suddenly have all these Republicans sounding off about how they don't need the federal government sticking needles in our babies. I imagine if Obama said he thought it was wrong to rape puppies, you'd get Ron Paul ranting about how what a man does to his property is none of the federal government's business.

  11. Re:Who are you? by Kazoo+the+Clown · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Are you kidding? In the '70s we still had unions. Both the Republicans and Democrats moved to outsource labor which has now mostly neutered the unions. The "giant sucking sound" Ross Perot talked about came to pass. And since then wages have stagnated except for those at the top.