gov claims [Note: This item comes from reader Ken DiPietro. DLH] Original URL: <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/04/4th-amendment_email_privacy/ > No email privacy rights under Constitution, US gov claims By Mark Rasch, SecurityFocus Published Sunday 4th November 2007 12:02 GMT On October 8, 2007, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati granted the government's request for a full- panel hearing in United States v. Warshak case centering on the right of privacy for stored electronic communications. At issue is whether the procedure whereby the government can subpoena stored copies of your email - similar to the way they could simply subpoena any physical mail sitting on your desk - is unconstitutionally broad. This appears to be more than a mere argument in support of the constitutionality of a Congressional email privacy and access scheme. It represents what may be the fundamental governmental position on Constitutional email and electronic privacy - that there isn't any. What is important in this case is not the ultimate resolution of that narrow issue, but the position that the United States government is taking on the entire issue of electronic privacy. That position, if accepted, may mean that the government can read anybody's email at any time without a warrant. What is Privacy? In a seminal case (Katz v. United States in 1963) the US Supreme Court, over the strenuous objections of the US government, upheld the right of the user of a payphone to claim a right to privacy in the contents of those communications. The Court held that the Fourth Amendment right to be secure in your "persons, house, places and effects" against unreasonable searches and seizures protected people, not just places. Thus, to determine whether you had a right against unreasonable seizure - a kind of privacy right - the court adopted a two-pronged test: did you think what you were doing was private and is society willing to accept your belief as objectively reasonable? [snip] ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE