[Dewayne-Net] No email privacy rights under Constitution, US
Dewayne Hendricks
dewayne at warpspeed.com
Mon Nov 5 08:39:24 PST 2007
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]
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