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What Congress' New Email-privacy Bill Means For Your Inbox
erier2003 writes: The Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act has a simple and vital purpose: making it harder for the government to get your email, instant messages, and Facebook chats. It amends a decades-old law to require government agencies to get a warrant to access the contents of any email or other electronic record—no matter how old those communications are. Sen. Mike Lee, one of the bill's cosponsors, told the Daily Dot why it matters. "The bill adds a warrant requirement for communications that were previously considered so old as to be irrelevant to their participants and unworthy of privacy protections. Right now, emails and other electronic messages older than 180 days are considered to have been “abandoned” by the people who sent and received them. Law-enforcement agencies don't need to get a warrant to force a company like Google or Facebook to turn over those communications." The act also requires the government to notify people whose records it has acquired, though they can delay that notice for 90 or 180 days if they feel sending it will put somebody at risk.
It is a pacifier. There is no milk.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Notification and warrant requirements. Almost like a Title III wiretap.
they'll just have all traffic routed offshore where it can be freely trawled through in a 'constitution free' zone, or else get the Brits to intercept it all as it goes via a British controlled territory...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
This sounds too good to be true (for personal rights), so either...
- it won't make it through to legislation
- it is being used simply to bargain with law enforcement agencies
- it will some how have a loop hole that means they can go about their business as they do today
so this is obviously an attempt to take our privacy. Republicans hate privacy. The summary is obviously wrong.
Only suckers use public email servers.
This is certainly a step in the right direction. Thank you Senator Mike Lee, R-UT.
While it may be that your emails are still being intercepted by numerous intelligence agencies, this is the way to fix the system. If law enforcement is not required by law to obtain warrants, why would any government agency not scoop up this information? At least this should change standard investigative procedures, and put in the framework rules that allow challenges to invasions of communications privacy.
Dead in committee:
Latest Action: 02/04/2015 Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
Meaningless.
On the bright side, congrats to OP for getting the apostrophe correct in "congress'" . Good job.
How is something we have no control over in the first place be considered abandoned? I delete my emails "Insert free email provider here" doesn't really delete them they just make it so i cant see it anymore. How can that be considered abandoned? I have US mail letters my first girlfriend sent me are they considered abandoned? no. I don't use my ISP email address Like everyone else because of spam and scams. So what are they doing with deleted,stored emails? That email is paid for it is not free email. IMO they should treat elect email just the same as they do a letter sent through the US mail and we shouldn't except anything less.
Jack of all trades,master of none
Gotta maintain the status quo. And if it does pass, that means they don't need to ask for it to get it.
"The bill adds a warrant requirement for communications that were previously considered so old as to be irrelevant to their participants and unworthy of privacy protections. Right now, emails and other electronic messages older than 180 days are considered to have been “abandoned” by the people who sent and received them. Law-enforcement agencies don't need to get a warrant to force a company like Google or Facebook to turn over those communications."
Okay, so something a mere 180 days old is "irrelevant" to me and "abandoned" by me but, is of value to the government in my prosecution?!?
Things that make ya go CENSORED.
Law-enforcement agencies don't need to get a warrant to force a company like Google or Facebook to turn over those communications. Agencies just need to assert in writing that they need the communication to further an active investigation.
If that is the case, it is because Google and Facebook *choose* to turn over those communications. Back when the constitution was written, it was assumed that the accused would refuse to provide information without a warrant. But today, most of our information is held by 3rd-parties who have no reason to withhold our information. So the 4th amendment doesn't work any more.
The ultimate fault here is that when Google holds my email, it should be *my* email not theirs, so they should not have the legal power to give it out without my consent. That is how the post office worked. They are actually not allowed to intercept mail without a warrant: it isn't theirs to give out. We lost that protection. Same without your gas-and-electric bill, your credit card records, and your passwords (don't forget that one if you use a password manager!). Those things are not yours, so the constitutional protections don't apply.
It's all in the fine print, and the unconstitutional extra-legal actions of those supposed to defend us from outside threats, who spy on us against our own Constitution, state Constitutions, and federal and state laws which do not permit them to do so, but who will never go to jail for their actions in so doing.
Welcome to serfdom. ... pause ...
Actually, no, serfs had rights.
You don't.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The article poster used an awful lot of words when "jack shit" would have sufficed.
If Slashdot was a reputable source of news, they'd include the party and district (or state, when appropriate... as a Senator, Lee's district is all of Utah) every time they mention an elected official.
While this law would be a nice step forward, it is doomed to fail because the powers that be won't let it through under their noses.
So, isn't there a way to get email clients, such as Thunderbird, to automatically encrypt any received email and only keep the encrypted copy on the server? I'm using the Enigmail plugin for encrypted emails (as if anyone actually signs their mail...), but it doesn't appear to support this kind of feature. Sure would be nice.
The only other alternative I can think of is to just archive it all locally, but that has some pretty obvious problems.
The CIA and NSA will ignore this completely. The FBI and local cops will not ignore this, they will get the warrant.
Why? Contacts and resources. The CIA and NSA already have the interest, money, necessary powers, contacts, skill etc. to totally ignore this ruling and get it via alternative means.
The local cops have none of those and won't be able to get your emails, neither will the FBI - although they all of the above, they are more sensitive to what the courts will say.
The real issue is ONE single criminal getting off because he can show that the local cops/FBI did not get a warrant, and therefore their whole case falls apart. As such, the courts can and should (but admittedly may not) protect us against the local cops and FBI. The CIA, NSA and their ilk don't care about the courts, so they will ignore it.
"What Congress' New Email-privacy Bill Means For Your Inbox"
If the Do-not-call Registry, or the 4th Amendment are any indication, not much.
By the time this bill is law, it will be changed so much that it defends the privacy of your inbox every bit as well as CAN-SPAM defends it from unsolicited commercial email.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
We no longer recognize the authority of Congress, or the Supreme court, as they have demonstrated a complete disregard for our Constitution.
All data should be heavily encrypted and kept under YOUR own control. Do NOT use any cloud services, or 3rd party software if you can avoid it, and drop Microsoft, as they are now providing their source code to governments along with access to additional data.
So they can request notifications be delayed..... nice. So is it a felony for them to improperly request delay? I feel it should be. They are supposed to understand the law they enfoce, they should be held to the strictest standards against it.
One of the worst things we do is allow law enforcement to go around bending and breaking laws, while holding everyone else's balls to the fire.
If they are trying to put others in jeapordy, they should face the same. Every single time, and it should be severe.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
It is a pacifier. There is no milk.
I agree.
First I note that Rand Paul is not on board as a co-sponsor. On any alleged civil-liberties-promoting Senate bill that's a big red flag saying "Look for the 'gotchas'".
Even a cursory look at the summary shows that it explicitly does not block "administrative" subpoenas and authorizes delaying or blocking the very notifications it's purported to require. "Get a warrant!" is a big so-what when they have a rubber-stamp court that gives them whatever warrants they want.
So I'm not even bothering to read any deeper. It smells (to high heaven) like a sound-good bill intended to substitute for any REAL reform and take the pressure off the legislators.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The last bill that was past was claiming to reign in spying, but it for the first time legalized spying on American citizens. People were claiming it reigned in spying powers, but it actually gave out tons of legalized spying powers. I love the USA, but the people writing the laws like to treat us like mushrooms.
God spoke to me
They could say that if the government did something wrong, the resposible people would be hanged in public by default without a trial, but that means nothing.
If your kid steals a cookie and all you do is say he should not do it, the kid will steal more cookies. This is not because the kid is bad, this is because the parent does nothing.
And then people say "but the constitution says ..." So? It might be nice as a starting point for a discussion, but in reality it means nothing.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
If you are on a court case and the other part requests the emails, you have to produce them.
Sometimes, several years after the facts.
So the abandonement of 180 days, is just a "legalese loophole".
I could accept that, if the user of the email didn't logged in on the account for 180 days. Not just the email age.
Remember, an email is a form of communication.
It has the same protections as a snail mail against tampering and interception.
Just because it happens on the internet and between servers and computers, the same laws do apply (if you get a smart enough lawyer that is, and deep pockets naturally).
So, if the government needs a warrant to read your emails, what about Google?
So... more secret laws, secret trials, secret jails?
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -- HST
Is a mor-man the male analogue to a mer-maid? English, mother fucker, do you speak it?
You want rights?
Nationalize the legal profession and make it illegal for lawyers and judges to get payed by the jurisdiction in which they practice to avoid a conflict of interest. Because you only have the rights you can afford. Welcome to our objectivist paradise.
If things 180 day old were no use, we'd have no slashdot at all ;-)
Passing laws does nothing to curtail the actions of those with no intent to follow the law.
http://undecidedgames.blogspot.com