[IP] Raiding your inbox
Begin forwarded message:
From: Alice Kehoe <akehoe@xxxxxxx>
Date: December 4, 2006 9:02:56 AM EST
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Raiding your inbox
Dave: for IP, if you wish
from Los Angeles Times http://www.latimes.com
Raiding your inbox
The Bush administration's assault on privacy rights soon could reach
e-mail messages stored on the Web.
December 1, 2006
IN THE LATEST illustration of the Bush administration's disregard for
your privacy, the Justice Department is trying to convince a panel of
federal judges that the FBI should be free to read your e-mail
without obtaining a warrant.
It's not all your e-mail — only messages left on a Web-based system
such as Hotmail or on your Internet service provider's computers. A
1986 law forbids the interception and disclosure of e-mail and other
online transmissions without a warrant. But there is an exception. If
the messages are more than 180 days old, they can be obtained merely
with a subpoena or a court order, which investigators can obtain more
easily than a warrant.
Now the Justice Department is arguing, in a case before an appeals
court in Ohio, that even new messages can be obtained without a
warrant if their intended recipient has already read them. The
Justice Department views an opened e-mail left on a service
provider's computer as more like a postcard left on a table than a
sealed letter in a drawer. Which is to say, its owner has no
reasonable expectation of privacy.
<snip>
Complete Editorial at: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/
asection/la-ed-email01dec01,1,5868619.story?coll=la-news-
a_section&ctrack=1&cset=true
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