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House Passes Email Privacy Act, Requiring Warrants For Obtaining Emails (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The U.S. House of Representatives has passed H.R. 699, the Email Privacy Act, sending it on to the Senate and from there, hopefully anyhow, to the President. The yeas were swift and unanimous. The bill, which was introduced in the House early last year and quickly found bipartisan support, updates the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, closing a loophole that allowed emails and other communications to be obtained without a warrant. It's actually a good law, even if it is arriving a couple of decades late. "Under current law, there are more protections for a letter in a filing cabinet than an email on a server," said Congresswoman Suzan Delbene during the debate period. An earlier version of the bill also required that authorities disclose that warrant to the person it affected within 10 days, or 3 if the warrant related to a government entity. That clause was taken out in committee -- something trade groups and some of the Representatives objected to as an unpleasant compromise.
But they can execute it anyway? Nice!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The 3 letter agencies are going to do what they want, regardless of what the "law" says, just like they do now.
what? iirc gmail (for example) keeps deleted email up to one year after it's deleted.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Good for us! Vote early and often. Pretend this shite matters. Preserving rights and improving one's government is the very best legacy that can be left to your children, grand or otherwise.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
What other exceptions and riders did they wrote into the bill for themselves or their enforcers?
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.
You think that the NSA is looking through your actual "inbox"? Idiot. They are INTERCEPTING the data...by the time you've deleted anything they've already got a dozen copies. Dumbass.
That was the offer of IMAP... just leave it all on the server. See what that brings us?
Does this require that service providers retain that information, or does it just require that they turn it over if they have it? The law looks pretty broad, covering not only ISPs but any "remote computing service". Does that mean that anonymous services can no longer be offered? Does it require ISPs to retain logs of IP address assignments permanently?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
What? Congress did a possibly good thing?
Yeah, but only out of cowardice. They're each terrified their own email might be abused. Sometimes bad motives like fear can produce good results, eh?
However, if you wait until the public isn't looking (which will take about 7 minutes given the current conditions) they'll add the rider in the fine print that the legal protections only applies to their OWN email (and perhaps the email of their campaign donors and future employers).
Still government of the corporations, by the lawyers, for the richest 0.1%.
Same as it ever was, and remember not to eat the yellow snow.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
In other political news, Ted Cruz just announced his selection for vice president:
http://cache3.asset-cache.net/...
You are welcome on my lawn.
They've been saying that for more than 20 years now. How's that working out? What country are you moving to when she wins the presidency?
Learn to love Alaska
Why not make it one year?
That way its ridiculously long and they would at least have to notify you eventually.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Does this require that service providers retain that information, or does it just require that they turn it over if they have it? The law looks pretty broad, covering not only ISPs but any "remote computing service". Does that mean that anonymous services can no longer be offered? Does it require ISPs to retain logs of IP address assignments permanently?
If you, instead of being lazy, click through to the congress website and actually take the 5 minutes of your life it'll require to read the text, you'll see this is purely updates to the existing act. This is literally just editing the original bill so that wording encompasses modern/digital services.
I looked for any riders or other amendments, can't seem to find anything nefarious, but it was mostly a quick and dirty look to get the gist.
Well, see, the law currently says that if you abandon your property long enough that you've given up the expectation of privacy. This makes sense leaving physical items behind, and was applied to email in a time when storage was expensive and etiquette dictated that you not leave your email on the server. But go off with your uninformed rhetoric.
They could create an international version of the NSA with domestic spying done by other countries agents.
There is a difference between requiring a warrant and magical folders appearing on your desk and not being able to use it.
This is not the same as making the government be responsible to preventing foreign intelligence agencies from spying on US citizens.
It should require a warrent, iff the email is encrypted. By doing that, it will actively encourage every email client to include encryption AND to make it the default. We need a way to encourage ALL emails to be encrypted.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
No they don't. It was the GOP that crafted the US patriot act and then cut back on NSA oversight. What the GOP does is APPEAR to support the Constitution when their followers scream about it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Oddly, trash like that live to go to Scandinavian nations. But most nations will take trash like him. Sadly, we are likely stuck with him.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.