[Fwd: [p2p-research] Slashdot | Federal Judge Says E-mail Not Protected By 4th Amendment]

J.A. Terranson measl at mfn.org
Thu Oct 29 20:43:42 PDT 2009


I wonder what would happen to people like myself, who are both the ISP and 
the "account holder"?  It would appear this is fertile grounds for 
throwing a rock in the gears.



On Thu, 29 Oct 2009, Ted Smith wrote:

> Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:13:47 -0400
> From: Ted Smith <teddks at gmail.com>
> To: Cypherpunks list <cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net>
> Subject: [Fwd: [p2p-research] Slashdot | Federal Judge Says E-mail Not  
>     Protected By 4th Amendment]
> 
> -------- Forwarded Message --------
> From: Paul D. Fernhout <pdfernhout at kurtz-fernhout.com>
> To: Peer-To-Peer Research List <p2presearch at listcultures.org>
> Subject: [p2p-research] Slashdot | Federal Judge Says E-mail Not
> Protected By 4th Amendment
> Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:53:53 -0400
> 
> http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/10/29/2257209/Federal-Judge-Says-E-mail-Not-
> Protected-By-4th-Amendment
> """
> In the case In re United States, Judge Mosman ruled that there is no
> constitutional requirement of notice to the account holder because the
> Fourth Amendment does not apply to e-mails under the third-party doctrine.
> 'When a person uses the Internet, the user's actions are no longer in his or
> her physical home; in fact he or she is not truly acting in private space at
> all. The user is generally accessing the Internet with a network account and
> computer storage owned by an ISP like Comcast or NetZero. All materials
> stored online, whether they are e-mails or remotely stored documents, are
> physically stored on servers owned by an ISP. When we send an e-mail or
> instant message from the comfort of our own homes to a friend across town
> the message travels from our computer to computers owned by a third party,
> the ISP, before being delivered to the intended recipient. Thus, b
privateb

> information is actually being held by third-party private companies."
> """
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_W._Mosman
> 
> From:
> http://volokh.com/2009/10/28/district-judge-concludes-e-mail-not-protected-by
> -fourth-amendment/
> "The case is In re United States, b F.Supp.2d b-, 2009 WL 3416240 (D.Or.
> 2009), by District Judge Mosman. The issue in the case is whether the
> government must notify a person when the government obtains a search warrant
> to access the contents of the personbs e-mail account. Judge Mosman
> concludes that Rule 41 and 18 U.S.C. 2703(a) require the notice to be served
> on the ISP, not the account holder, as a statutory matter. He then rules
> that there is no constitutional requirement of notice to the account holder
> because the Fourth Amendment does not apply to the e-mails under the
> third-party doctrine. Herebs the relevant analysis: ..."
> 
> I don't really know what this means for peer-to-peer in general, given email
> is a peer-to-peer technology.
> 
> --Paul Fernhout
> http://www.pdfernhout.net/
> http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/
> 
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> 
> [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]
> 

-- 
Yours,
J.A. Terranson
sysadmin_at_mfn.org
0xF6D40CF5
0xpgp_key_mgmt_is_broken-dont_bother

"Never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public
plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to
the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always
be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by
predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty."

Joseph Pulitzer
1907 Speech





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