EFF seeks to protect e-mail privacy

The United States government must have a search warrant before it can search and seize emails stored by email service providers, according to a brief filed last week by the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a coalition of civil liberty groups. The brief was filed to support a landmark district court decision that the federal Stored Communications Act (SCA) violates the Fourth Amendment by allowing secret, warrantless searches and seizures of email stored with a third party.

EFF's brief was filed in Warshak vs. United States, a federal court case in the Southern District of Ohio brought by Steven Warshak to stop the government's repeated secret searches and seizures of his stored email. The district court ruled that the government cannot use the SCA to obtain stored email without a warrant or prior notice to the email account holder. The government, which has routinely used the SCA over the past 20 years to secretly obtain stored email without a warrant, appealed the decision to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That court is now primed to be the first circuit court ever to decide whether email users have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" in their stored email.

"Email users clearly expect that their inboxes are private, but the government argues the Fourth Amendment doesn't protect emails at all when they are stored with an ISP or a webmail provider like Hotmail or Gmail," said EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "EFF disagrees. We think that the Fourth Amendment applies online just as strongly as it does offline, and that your email should be as safe against government intrusion as your phone calls, postal mail, or the private papers you keep in your home."

Comments

[tinker]

Thank heavens!
And thank you, Tara, for continuing to spread the word about important issues.
xo

[rel]

Tara,
score a point for the good guys on this one for now.
If we intrude on the majority of people's privacy austensibly to catch some possible terroists then we will carve away all our freedoms in due time and fullfill Orwell's "prophecy?" I don't want to live "safely" in a police state!
rel

[annieelf]

Kerstin makes good points but in the end I must agree with her "Live Free or Die". Allowing this to be used as a tool to fight terrorism only opens the door to widespread abuse. Big Brother needs to remain the genie IN the box

[Kerstin]

Are there any stats out there as to how many terrorist attacks have been foiled because of information gained from reading emails, or listening into phone conversations? The freedom and justice loving part in me revolts against this intrusion into my privacy. Yet, if it prevents even just one more attack? Where do you draw the line between basic citizen rights and the need for protection? And I don't think that anyone would argue that we do need protection.

However, having witnessed the horrifying invasion into people's private lives by the Stasi in East Germany I am more inclined to go with the motto of New Hampshire: "Live Free or Die."

[Sophie]

hmmmmmmmmm - this is timely.

[AscenderRisesAbove]

Hoping we are able to start taking back our rights stolen from us!!! It will be a long slow process to get back to where we were...

[berrie]

being an american lots of things scare me these days...I guess lots of things scare everyone, but this is right up there with scary! I mean phone calls are ultra bad enough, but Can you imagine having someone watching your emails? I don't share my emails with my family?? Something is so wrong here today..thanks for the update on that t! xo

[JanePoe (aka Deborah)]

Thank goodness the district court saw the wisdom in protecting email and not denegrating individual constitutional rights. Lets pray that the circuit court will show the same judgement and wisdom. Kudos to the EFF. Thanks for this important post, Tara. Much peace, JP