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Bipartisan Bill Would Mandate Warrant To Search Emails

Posted by Soulskill on from the of-barn-doors-and-horses dept.

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.

7 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 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.
    2. 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. 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.
  4. RomneyCare by davidwr · · Score: 5, Funny

    Consider Obamacare: The policy behind it was originally proposed by Republicans

    I'm grateful that Obama and Congress got together and passed RomneyCare.

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    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  5. 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.