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Raiding your inbox
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2006 17:07:53 -0500
Begin forwarded message: From: Alice Kehoe <akehoe () zen org> Date: December 4, 2006 9:02:56 AM EST To: dave () farber net Subject: Raiding your inbox Dave: for IP, if you wish from Los Angeles Times http://www.latimes.com Raiding your inboxThe Bush administration's assault on privacy rights soon could reach e-mail messages stored on the Web.
December 1, 2006IN 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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