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House Panel Approves Bill To Protect Older Email From Gov't Snooping (usatoday.com)

Posted by msmash on from the nobody-should-read-my-emails dept.

Erin Kelly, reporting for USA TODAY: A key House panel voted Wednesday to pass an email privacy bill that would stop the government from being able to read Americans' old emails without a warrant. The House Judiciary Committee voted 28-0 to approve the Email Privacy Act, a bipartisan bill that would replace a 1986 law that allows government investigators to peruse emails at will if the communications are at least six months old. The bill would require federal officials to obtain a warrant before they can read or view emails, texts, photos or instant messages -- regardless of when the data was sent. "Today is a great day for not only the Fourth Amendment advocates who have fought long and hard to move the Email Privacy Act, but also for all Americans, who are one step closer to having private and secure digital communications," said Rep. Kevin Yoder, R-Kan., the lead sponsor of the bill along with Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo.

78 comments

  1. no parallel construction act? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    without criminalizing and prosecuting parallel construction, this is a complete waste of time. we already had privacy... needing a law to say we have privacy actually implies we had LESS privacy.

    you're all morons.

    1. Re:no parallel construction act? by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 0

      Grammar Girl will never touch your wee-wee.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    2. Re:no parallel construction act? by mi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      without criminalizing and prosecuting parallel construction [...]

      Parallel construction is an orthogonal (unrelated) problem. Yes, it can be abused to obtain a warrant dishonestly, but it has legitimate purposes too. It is dangerous, but a person innocent of substantial wrongdoing is yet to be convicted because of it...

      we already had privacy... needing a law to say we have privacy actually implies we had LESS privacy.

      You are right — we had less. There was a law that diminished our privacy — in contravention with the Constitution. That law could've been abolished by either Supreme Court hearing a concrete case, or by a new law. The former has not occurred in 30 years, the latter just happened. Rejoice.

      you're all morons.

      No, actually. We're all cows. Moo.

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    3. Re:no parallel construction act? by Kjella · · Score: 2

      Parallel construction is an orthogonal (unrelated) problem. Yes, it can be abused to obtain a warrant dishonestly, but it has legitimate purposes too. It is dangerous, but a person innocent of substantial wrongdoing is yet to be convicted because of it...

      Parallel construction is far from orthogonal to privacy. It's basically permission to violate your privacy any way they wish, pretend it didn't happen and after the fact come up with an alternate story that doesn't violate your rights. They can just read your emails, listen to your phone calls, open your letters, bug your house, attach a GPS tracker to your car and if they get caught, too bad it's inadmissable. If they don't, a police officer just happened to catch you in the act or they got an anonymous tip or whatever fits their story. You don't get to challenge what really happened, because they'll never tell you.

      It's legalized perjury. That whole "truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" not applying to the police. And because they don't have to tell it ever, the innocent never get to hear about it either. How can they challenge the constitutionality of something they're not even aware happened? And who is to say they cops didn't add a few more lies to ensure a conviction when they're lying in the first place? It's an insult to both the 4th and 5th amendment, a clever joke like Mr. Smith telling Neo "What good is a phone call if you are unable to speak?"

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    4. Re:no parallel construction act? by quintessencesluglord · · Score: 1

      but a person innocent of substantial wrongdoing is yet to be convicted because of it.

      Kinda hard to do when the prosecution ends up charge stacking until 90% of defendants cop a plea.

      So to be clear, enhanced interrogation can be abused to obtain information dishonestly, but it has legitimate purposes too.

      I want to know how much gray is tolerated with procedure as long as it gets results.

    5. Re:no parallel construction act? by mi · · Score: 1

      prosecution ends up charge stacking until 90% of defendants cop a plea.

      Citations missing.

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    6. Re:no parallel construction act? by mi · · Score: 1

      It's basically permission to violate your privacy any way they wish

      It is not, even though police have (ab)used it, because it removes an important safeguard.

      I do not like it in the least, but I don't think, it has much relation to the law in TFA.

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    7. Re:no parallel construction act? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      a person innocent of substantial wrongdoing is yet to be convicted because of it.

      The problem is that it is impossible to know that this is true. What would it look like, if an innocent person had been convicted because of parallel construction? Would it look like a cop planting a baggie of crack on a suspect because he was clean when "sources" said he was supposed to be a dealer? There's been entire departments fired for that.

      Further, once you say "I'm going to break the law to prove that suspect is a criminal" then your proof is immediately suspect. You have already shown yourself to be a lawbreaker, and worse, in the event you have broken the law for no reason, there's a perverse incentive to falsify your proof so you can at least attempt to justify having broken the law. Maybe it would look like a computer that was "discovered" full of kiddie porn after a tip from an "anonymous hacker"? In many cases the same powers used for parallel construction can be used to plant evidence.

      It's also interesting that you seem to have set the bar for misuse at "conviction". The government has far more power to fuck with you than simply throwing you in prison (I wrote "jail" here originally, but "jail" is usually where they throw people until their trial or they figure out to make bail, obviously being stuck in jail for a day while you wait for your bail hearing wouldn't fuck up your life at all, no siree, your boss will surely understand!). How does getting dragged out of your house at 6:15AM while people go through every piece of electronic equipment you own sound?

    8. Re:no parallel construction act? by Frobnicator · · Score: 1

      Citations missing.

      That's easy enough:

      Currently about 97% of federal "convictions" are guilty pleas. Other topics like the "trial penalty" are common enough subjects someone with your low user-number should know, and are easily found in search engines.

      The common practice is for prosecutors to heap on an enormous pile of federal crimes until the risk of happening to be found guilty of some obscure aspect of one of them, like the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act that potentially forbids screen names under penalty of jail time, that the person realizes the relatively short prison stay is better than legal defense that quickly reaches six-figure costs in addition to a high chance of many years in prison, versus a few tens of thousands of costs and a few months to a few years in prison.

      For most victims of this type of aggressive prosecution it is only a matter of how much they can afford to fight the prosecutor, not a matter of actual justice for wrongs done.

      --
      //TODO: Think of witty sig statement
    9. Re:no parallel construction act? by quintessencesluglord · · Score: 1

      http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB...

      http://www.thecrimereport.org/...

      Moneyshot- "Ninety-seven percent of federal criminal prosecutions are resolved by plea bargain. In state courts the numbers are comparable."

      And quid pro quo

      Parallel construction [wikipedia.org] is an orthogonal (unrelated) problem

      [citation needed]

      but it has legitimate purposes too

      [citation needed]

      but a person innocent of substantial wrongdoing is yet to be convicted because of it

      [citation needed]

      I mean fair is fair, right?

    10. Re:no parallel construction act? by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 1
      There are no legitimate purposes to parallel construction. Protecting undercover agents and informants is routinely done in court cases and does not require parallel construction.

      What parallel construction does violate is the fundamental bedrock principle of the modern legal system that you are allowed to question your accuser.

      It is dangerous, but a person innocent of substantial wrongdoing is yet to be convicted because of it...

      And just how do you know this? An 'innocent' person is one who can't be convicted based on the evidence introduced against them. When evidence that wouldn't be admissible is used because of parallel construction, the person 'convicted' is actually innocent.

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    11. Re:no parallel construction act? by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 1

      2 words. Aaron. Swartz. cite

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    12. Re:no parallel construction act? by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      Parallel construction is far from orthogonal to privacy. It's basically permission to violate your privacy any way they wish, pretend it didn't happen and after the fact come up with an alternate story that doesn't violate your rights. They can just read your emails, listen to your phone calls, open your letters, bug your house, attach a GPS tracker to your car and if they get caught, too bad it's inadmissable.

      Exactly, thank you for pointing it out, especially considering there is no *time limit* for the monitoring of a citizen via intelligence sharing arrangements with other nation states. I have to admit that I'm still stinging a bit from being called a facist and a hater for pointing that out to people who didn't understand the issue so I hope people do develop a better understanding of what is going on when it come to the reality of their "freedom". Modern western democracies have access to more powers that made East Germany and the USSR police states and people recoil with horror when you suggest the TLAs of the world to follow an appropriate means to control their access to a citizen's meta data products because they assume their freedoms are more than what they actually are.

      NEWSFLASH, we already are in a police state and all the freedoms western democracies have struggled to establish have been under attack as the TLAs struggle to find relevance after the Cold War for at least 15 years. I'm not saying they shouldn't be able to do their job but ffs what is the point of a democracy if it is just a name for a police state, while everyone laughs nervously at the reality and calls you a hater for doing so.

      Telecommunication warrants *used* to exist and were a requirement for monitoring a citizen's communications. This is a common construct for other western democracies. The sad sad sad thing about this Act is that it is a poor substitute for the constitutional controls that already existed in many western countries that were designed to protect us from the very scenario that we find ourselves in now.

      It's not just that we're on a slippery slope, we are already sliding and we don't just need to defend democracy we actually have to work pretty hard to get back *what we had*. Laws like this are good and should be celebrated, but they are not a substitute for the constitution that most nations anti-terrorism acts are violating, that make them a requirement in the first place. We shouldn't need a law that tells government departments that they should behave constitutionally, that they should respect the citizens whose duty it is for them to protect.

      All of the Terrorism laws need to be brought into line with the expectations of the citizens of western democracies that the constitution of their country is the ultimate authority they are governed under. Whilst you won't find a shred of sympathy from me from human rights abusing religious fundamentalists, it's plain to see that they are being used as the excuse *every time* to take more freedom from citizens.

      As a citizen of a western democracy I expect to not be spied on if I am abiding by the law.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    13. Re:no parallel construction act? by KGIII · · Score: 2

      It's not often that I go a day without mud being thrown at me. I kind of like it. I do my best to state the truth and to accept my mistakes and not repeat them. However, I can - and will, tell it like it is. I'm pretty damned on the socialist side (for *very* different reasons than most) and have figured it's a badge of honor to be called an ultraconservative.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    14. Re:no parallel construction act? by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      However, I can - and will, tell it like it is.

      I'm don't see this as a political issue in the sense of right or left, more of a matter government deceiving the electorate so that it can wield more power over the people, who are being deceived. This is more left *and* right.

      These laws were presented with bi-partesan support in my country almost 18 months ago. There was the same public outcry about something that was irrelevant so they could pass something else. The contents of the both articles are identical in intent.

      Section 4 in the US version contains meta data retention clauses that would include exactly the information required to directly map the associations of the countries internet users. I wasn't certain these were going to be the same, until I read the discussion draft of the law and then I knew exactly what I was looking at.

      Don't fall in the same trap we did.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    15. Re:no parallel construction act? by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      Apologies for repeating myself, I found a browser window with that comment and thought I hadn't responded. I just realized I've said this to you in another post.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
  2. Why should the age matter in the first place? by sims+2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If I kept a diary no one would expect that entries older than six months were not still personal and private.

    How is my private communication any different?

    --
    Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    1. Re:Why should the age matter in the first place? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      The reason is that email worked different back then.

      Back then, you would pull your email off the server and it would be off the server. Old emails could then be considered 'abandoned' which removes your rights to it.

      Trouble is, that practice changed and the law didn't change to reflect that.

    2. Re:Why should the age matter in the first place? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If I kept a diary no one would expect that entries older than six months were not still personal and private.

      How is my private communication any different?

      You apparently are not from this planet and expect politicians to create laws that make sense.

      One of the effects of the existing law is that the company I work for automatically deletes all e-mails older than 6 months, unless I specifically mark each one as being important and should not be deleted. So I have to somehow predict the future and figure out which e-mails I might need to reference 6+ months from now. And it still only gets me another 6 months and then they get deleted anyway.

      "Today is a great day for not only the Fourth Amendment advocates who have fought long and hard to move the Email Privacy Act, but also for all Americans, who are one step closer to having private and secure digital communications," said Rep. Kevin Yoder, R-Kan., the lead sponsor of the bill

      Too bad he and the rest of the Republicans don't give two shits about the hundreds of other actions by the federal government that violate the fourth amendment.

    3. Re: Why should the age matter in the first place? by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      Old emails could then be considered 'abandoned' which removes your rights to it.

      Like maritime salvage law? Are you sure you even know what you're talking about?

    4. Re:Why should the age matter in the first place? by SecurityGuy · · Score: 1

      False. I got my first email account in 1990. I'd telnet in (yes, telnet!) and read my email in pine. It all stayed on the server.

      The whole "abandoned" theory is just a legal fiction.

    5. Re:Why should the age matter in the first place? by ADRA · · Score: 1

      Age is certainly irrelevant, but dead citizens have no rights (to privacy), so once they're dead, only copyright prevents emails from being distributed. I don't know how this would work with two people communications where only one individual was alive.

      This all reminds me of the steamy love letters from Warren Harding.

      --
      Bye!
    6. Re:Why should the age matter in the first place? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just because it could be done that way doesn't mean that most people were, especially not those who were writing the laws governing these things.

    7. Re: Why should the age matter in the first place? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Are you sure you even know what you're talking about?

      Yes, in so far as I know what "logic" the government used.

    8. Re:Why should the age matter in the first place? by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      My assumption would be they would still have full access since the owner of the account was deceased.

      That being said I would not wan't someone running through my mail even though I would no longer be able to contest it.

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    9. Re:Why should the age matter in the first place? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Why should the age matter in the first place?

      Real answer: it goes towards the doctrine that involving a 3rd party eliminates the expectation of privacy. Somewhere along the line, a judge decided that if you are leaving your emails on your provider's servers for more than 6 months, then that storage is no longer incidental to you simply receiving the email, and you are in fact using the storage as an archive. Since you are storing your emails with a 3rd party, you no longer have an expectation of privacy, so they no longer need a warrant.

      It's complete bullshit, IMHO. Any electronic communication involves a 3rd party (making a phone call requires the phone company to "hear," transmit, and reproduce your conversation), but this is the kind of twisted mental gymnastics that the court often goes through. I also presume that physical storage (such as a storage locker) would require a warrant, but hey, lets not use that obvious precedent!

    10. Re:Why should the age matter in the first place? by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      And I read my first email back in 1982. Stayed on the machine though until you deleted it.

  3. Republicans hate privacy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Well, unless you're an old white man.

    1. Re: Republicans hate privacy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They always stand against freedom.

    2. Re: Republicans hate privacy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hate is not too strong of a word.

    3. Re:Republicans hate privacy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, unless you're an old white man.

      "Rep. Kevin Yoder, R-Kan., the lead sponsor of the bill..."

      It was even in the summary!

    4. Re: Republicans hate privacy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But he is an alcoholic and drives drunk so often he got stopped for suspicion of DUI. On average, those drunks drive drunk over a thousand times for every time they're caught. He was probably drunk and forgot his party's anti freedom platform when he voted yes for the bill.

    5. Re: Republicans hate privacy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hate is not strong enough of a word.

  4. Or... by PvtVoid · · Score: 2

    Just store your old emails locally, instead of with your mail provider. Unless the provider logs everything, for all time, they can't cough it up, even with a warrant.

    1. Re:Or... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Almost everyone is on webmail now. You might not think they should be, but it doesn't matter: that ship has sailed and it ain't coming back.

      Plus, even if you're not using webmail, your provider can still make its own copy of the email as it goes by, so it doesn't really help you. Maybe end to end PGP would help, but that covers a whopping 0.00001% of the email using population.

    2. Re:Or... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Or don't talk about your criminal acts in email, or on the Internet at all. This was a situation where only people who are both criminals and stupid needed to worry. It's similar to the people who announce their crimes on Facebook.

    3. Re:Or... by gmack · · Score: 1

      Great plan until you have multiple devices. I sync work, home, laptop and cell phone with my mail server.

      Luckily it's hosted in Germany rather than the US so I don't have to worry about these things.

    4. Re:Or... by PvtVoid · · Score: 0

      Great plan until you have multiple devices.

      Because there's absolutely no way to work around that problem.

    5. Re:Or... by sims+2 · · Score: 3, Informative

      This is warrantless search we are talking about. The gov't would still be able to get anything they wanted to know with a warrant same as always.

      Email is not in anyway a public forum. Your Facebook wall however with your 3,531 "friends" is fairly public.

      What if all the pictures on your phone (on many they are automaticity backed up to the cloud) were to be automatically forwarded to your local police dept if you didn't delete them after six months just in case lets Assume its not their job to look at them but they could if they wanted to without having to ask anyone.

      Would that also be ok?

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    6. Re:Or... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Email is not in anyway a public forum. ... What if all the pictures on your phone ... Would that also be ok?

      You replied to my post, but your reply makes no sense. Nowhere did I argue this snooping was OK, or that email is a public forum, so I have no clue what you are talking about or why you got modded up to +3. What you wrote was a total non-sequitur and had nothing to do with my post. Perhaps you accidentally clicked "reply" on the wrong message?

  5. Not for long... by the_xaqster · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This wont last long. The FBI, NSA and probably half a dosen other agencies will start to cry "but terrorism!!11!!!"

    --
    I'm just here to regulate Funkyness
    1. Re:Not for long... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those agencies will continue reading your mail regardless of any new law.

    2. Re:Not for long... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't worry - this is the House. The Senate Intelligence Committee will kill it.

      Are you feeling represented yet?

    3. Re:Not for long... by pr0fessor · · Score: 1

      On one side we have disproportionate fear pushing people to blindly try to take security and privacy away from the public while on the other side we have the public's need for their data and e-commerce to secured against theft. Those agencies pressing for more and easier access to data and communications are trying to take advantage of that fear to make their jobs easier while not addressing the concerns of the public's safety from theft and fraud.

    4. Re:Not for long... by Pontiac · · Score: 1

      This wont last long. The FBI, NSA and probably half a dosen other agencies will start to cry "but terrorism!!11!!!"

      NSA: No problem.. We have all the old mail and a rolling grab on new stuff..

      --
      If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
    5. Re:Not for long... by SumDog · · Score: 1

      Exactly. This does absolutely nothing to stop any of the NSA programs. Did we....did we forgot about PRISM? Seriously?

  6. I bet Hillary likes this... by jnaujok · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...as it would make all of the evidence against her in ServerGate inadmissible.

    --
    Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
    1. Re:I bet Hillary likes this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...as it would make all of the evidence against her in ServerGate inadmissible.

      Well to be fair, this impacts emails stored on a third party server, not on your own machine. The email machine in Hilary's basement bathroom closet belonged to her, so this change wouldn't have mattered. She was told the emails on her server belonged to the government, so she handed over a batch of emails she said she decided were from official business, then erased the rest so they couldn't be read by anyone, especially those who might check if her judgment and/or honesty might be questioned.

    2. Re:I bet Hillary likes this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      She was told the emails on her server belonged to the government, so she handed over a batch of emails she said she decided were from official business, then erased the rest so they couldn't be read by anyone, especially those who might check if her judgment and/or honesty might be questioned.

      Remember folks, this whole scandal is over just the emails she forgot to delete. Think about that.

    3. Re:I bet Hillary likes this... by ADRA · · Score: 1

      Not that I have a full understanding of the whole private email server fiasco (TLDR requested), but either she was indited for a crime and a warrant could legally be issued for said emails, or there wasn't just cause, in which case these privacy protections would prevent officers from going on a fishing trip. What are you arguing for exactly?

      --
      Bye!
    4. Re:I bet Hillary likes this... by silas_moeckel · · Score: 1

      That she gave to them because if she were anybody else they would have raided the house and taken the server.

      --
      No sir I dont like it.
    5. Re:I bet Hillary likes this... by PvtVoid · · Score: 1

      Not that I have a full understanding of the whole private email server fiasco (TLDR requested), but either she was indited for a crime and a warrant could legally be issued for said emails, or there wasn't just cause, in which case these privacy protections would prevent officers from going on a fishing trip. What are you arguing for exactly?

      This. "Servergate" seems to be largely being propagated by people who don't seem to know how email works. If I'm allowed to access, for example, classified emails from a personal device, then they are, by defnition, copied to that device. Whether that device is a "server" or not is utterly irrelevant.

    6. Re:I bet Hillary likes this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      More tin foil for you.

      Perhaps that means she really only deleted personal emails. Otherwise these emails that were classified after the fact would have been deleted also.

      Dumbass. Tell your shrink to massively increase the amps in your shock therapy.

    7. Re:I bet Hillary likes this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Based on what it has done to you it doesn't make you better, only offensive, stupid, and a sheeple. I would tell your doc to switch you from electroshock to a heavier dose of anti-psychotics.

    8. Re:I bet Hillary likes this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No it wouldn't. She released the emails herself. It's not "snooping".

      Also, the feds would certainly not have any problems getting a warrant in that case anyway.

      Mod parent down.

    9. Re:I bet Hillary likes this... by jittles · · Score: 2

      Not that I have a full understanding of the whole private email server fiasco (TLDR requested), but either she was indited for a crime and a warrant could legally be issued for said emails, or there wasn't just cause, in which case these privacy protections would prevent officers from going on a fishing trip. What are you arguing for exactly?

      This. "Servergate" seems to be largely being propagated by people who don't seem to know how email works. If I'm allowed to access, for example, classified emails from a personal device, then they are, by defnition, copied to that device. Whether that device is a "server" or not is utterly irrelevant.

      Your opinion is obviously propagated by someone who does not understand how information security works at that level. At no time was Hillary Clinton authorized to send these documents to her private email server. That's why Hillary first asked for an approved Blackberry device from the NSA. They said no, she threw a fit and then illegally disseminated the email to her private server. Even if the email was not marked as classified, she's not off the hook. The rules clearly state that if you believe that the information could or should be classified then you must treat it as such. If you did exactly as she did, you'd already be in jail. Trust me. I used to have to deal with this sort of thing. People who have to deal with this sort of thing are briefed on the rules annually. She knew or should have known that she was violating the rules.

    10. Re:I bet Hillary likes this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wingnut fake controversies don't actually have evidence. Wingnuts have set beliefs, and require that their media cater to those beliefs, rather than telling the truth. Unfortunately some of the BernieBros got onto the fake-controversy bandwagon.

    11. Re:I bet Hillary likes this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who cares, it benefits the public. Still gonna encrypt, though

    12. Re:I bet Hillary likes this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If she was using the government servers she was supposed to, all emails would have been archived. There would be no deleting of anything. So yes, it goes without saying don't use it for personal business... but whatever...

      The fact she deleted anything already makes her a criminal (if running her own server didn't already). The content doesn't matter, though obviously if she is hiding something she shouldn't she would be in even deeper shit.

  7. Rubber stamped warrants... too easy to get by fustakrakich · · Score: 0

    And besides, how are you ever going to prove they're not snooping anyway? You will not get anything useful from these politicians you keep reelecting. The opportunity to vote out every single member of the house lies before us. Let's take the chance, and then maybe you might prevent government snooping.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    1. Re:Rubber stamped warrants... too easy to get by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The opportunity to vote out every single member of the House occurs every two years.

      It has never happened and never will.

    2. Re:Rubber stamped warrants... too easy to get by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      Just don't try to convince me it can't...

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  8. Let me guess. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And I bet it would protect Clinton's emails also. hmmm.

    I have not read it yet, but I would guess it has one or more of the following people in it.

    Diane Feinstein
    Nancy Pelosi
    Harry Reid
    Lindsey Graham
    Mitch McConnell

    1. Re:Let me guess. by imidan · · Score: 3, Informative

      I have not read it yet, but I would guess it has one or more of the following people in it.

      Diane Feinstein
      Nancy Pelosi
      Harry Reid
      Lindsey Graham
      Mitch McConnell

      Notice how, in the title of TFA, this bill has been approved by a House panel? As in, The US House of Representatives? Of the five people you've listed here, four are US Senators. Nancy Pelosi is the one person in your list who is actually a member of the House. Note also that the bill has been passed by the House Judiciary Committee, of which Nancy Pelosi is not a member, so she could not have participated in this vote. Furthermore, she is not listed as a cosponsor of the bill.

      There is a related Senate bill, the "Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act of 2015." None of the cosponsors of that legislation are on your list, either. There's also a House bill corresponding to that Senate bill, which also does not include Pelosi as a cosponsor.

      Did you just vomit out a list of politicians that you dislike? This information is in the public record. It's pointless to 'guess' about facts that you can easily look up.

    2. Re:Let me guess. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pointless? No, he is sowing the seeds of doubt among the gullible and credulous. Have you been under a rock during the politicking of the last 20 years?

    3. Re:Let me guess. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The GP is crazy. Feinstein hates privacy and will probably never vote for this unless it has such broad support that she's too embarrassed to go against it (don't count on this).

      This is actually and old and much needed update to a law regarding stored communications that has always been nonsensical. It has little or nothing to do with Hillary and even if it did, it might be the only good thing to come out of this, other than them filing charges against her, which I don't have any hope whatsoever of seeing come to pass.

      And even if it did, she'd just get pardoned by Obama more likely than not. Neat trick, isn't it? If Nixon had been a bit more clever, maybe he could've pardoned some people and gotten out of that, too...

  9. What took so long by ULTROS · · Score: 0

    The Republicans do some good every once in awhile.

  10. No pine in 1990... by mi · · Score: 2

    I got my first email account in 1990. I'd telnet in (yes, telnet!) and read my email in pine.

    Pine was first released in 1992. Elm, perhaps? Or just the good old mail(1)?

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    1. Re:No pine in 1990... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Listen, the guy was running pine version alpha 0.002.378.
      Try not to be so picky about facts like that, 'k

      CAP === 'timidity'

  11. The requested TL;DR by Voyager529 · · Score: 2

    Hillary had her own private e-mail server.
    Hillary used that private e-mail server for government communication.
    Some of that communication was classified, and wasn't handled as such.
    Hillary did not turn over the server at the end of her tenure as Secretary of State (a condition of the rules allowing the use of a non-government server).
    When prompted about the server because of Benghazi, Hillary denied access to the server until quite some time later.
    When she did, she printed the e-mails out on paper, instead of delivering digital copies.
    There is at least one documented case of intentionally having safeguards of classified data circumvented.

    Questions circling:
    What, exactly, was Hillary truly aware of at the time, from a technical standpoint?
    What, exactly, was Hillary truly aware of at the time, from a political standpoint?
    Exactly what documents were classified, and when (one of the arguments is that some documents were retroactively marked classified)?

    You're correct in that the ruling in TFA wouldn't apply to Hillary's case, because Hillary's case involves warrants and subpoenas and other fun documents of that nature, and apply to official government communication. Thus, the ruling in TFA would be superseded by those things anyway.

    1. Re:The requested TL;DR by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If she did nothing wrong, she'd have nothing to hide.

      SC: simple

    2. Re:The requested TL;DR by jittles · · Score: 2

      Questions circling: What, exactly, was Hillary truly aware of at the time, from a technical standpoint?

      Irrelevant. She's required to undergo annual security training. During that time you are trained to not mix secure systems or networks with insecure systems or networks. If she did not know the rules then that is her fault. She agreed to uphold them and certified that she attended her annual training. If she did not know, it is her fault.

      What, exactly, was Hillary truly aware of at the time, from a political standpoint?

      I don't see how politics fall into this whatsoever. This is purely a criminal matter (the email server). Whether she did anything illegal for political reasons is irrelevant as far as the email server itself goes.

      Exactly what documents were classified, and when (one of the arguments is that some documents were retroactively marked classified)?

      The fact of the matter is that the document does not have to be marked as classified. If she knew or should have known that the documents were classified then she should have treated the documents as such.

    3. Re:The requested TL;DR by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      Exactly what documents were classified, and when (one of the arguments is that some documents were retroactively marked classified)?

      As I recall reading recently, some of the classified emails were written BY Hillary, not sent TO Hillary. Really hard to argue that they were only classified after she received them when she was the author....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
  12. Well, since the NSA, FBI, CIA etc...don't obey law by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, since the NSA, FBI, CIA etc...don't obey laws anyway, and they and the rest of the government ignore the U.S. Constitution whenever the want to, you just need to be careful what you say in emails or any other electronic or written documents. Not that it matters so much when they can record audio and video from your smartphone any time they want to without your knowledge or consent. And since they almost never have probable cause and don't bother to get a warrant, there isn't much to do about it.

  13. Waste by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They spy on whatever they want..

    Congress is just trying to give the impression that they're actually doing something besides pissing away our tax money.

  14. Nothingburger by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This does nothing to prevent Russian and other foreign hackers from spying on Americans emails. Internet traffic must be encrypted to prevent that.

  15. Translation: MUST PROTECT HILLARY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seriously, this is nothing but another attempt to protect Hillary and other political criminals from being indited.

  16. Sudden outbreak? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What ever happened to the sudden outbreak of common sense tag? Did it go away? I miss it. It would really apply here dontcha think?