[IP] more on more on E-mail intercept ruling - good grief!! (fwd from dave at farber.net)

Roy M. Silvernail roy at rant-central.com
Fri Jul 2 10:50:33 PDT 2004


Eugen Leitl forwarded:

>	The constitutional question is whether users have a "reasonable
>expectation of privacy" in VOIP phone calls.  Since the 1960's, the
>Supreme Court has found a 4th Amendment protection for voice phone
>calls.  Meanwhile, it has found no constitutional protection for stored
>records.  In an article coming out shortly from the Michigan Law Review,
>I show why VOIP calls quite possibly will be found NOT to have
>constitutional protection under the 4th Amendment.  It would then be up
>to Congress to fix this, or else have the Supreme Court change its
>doctrine to provide more protections against future wiretaps.  Article
>at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=490623 .
>  
>
Call me cynical (no... go ahead), but if VOIP is found to have no 4th 
Amendment protection, Congress would first have to agree that this *is* 
a problem before thay could "fix" it.  Given the recent track record of 
legislators vs. privacy, I'm not at all confident Congress would 
recognize the flaw, much less legislate to extend 4th Amendment 
protection.  After all, arent more and more POTS long-distance calls 
being routed over IP?  The only difference, really, is the point at 
which audio is fed to the codec.  If the codec is in the central office, 
it's a "voice" call.  If it's in the handset or local computer, it's 
VOIP.  I think we can count on the Ashcroftians to eventually notice 
this and pounce upon the opportunity.  And as for the SCOTUS, all they 
have to do is sit back on a strict interpretation and such intercepts 
aren't "wiretaps" at all.

-- 
Roy M. Silvernail is roy at rant-central.com, and you're not
"It's just this little chromium switch, here." - TFS
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