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Title: The govt reads all your old emails and doesn't need a warrant
Source:
Mass Private
URL Source: http://massprivatei.blogspot.com/20 ... -read-any-emails-that-are.html
Published: Feb 12, 2015
Author: Mass Private
Post Date: 2015-02-13 09:12:25 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 781
Comments: 4
If you don't clean out your email in-box every month, here’s some incentive: The federal government can read any emails that are more than six months old without a warrant.
That means, the NSA, DHS, FBI etc., are spying on all your old emails.
Little known to most Americans, ambiguous language in a communications law passed in 1986 extends Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure only to electronic communications sent or received fewer than 180 days ago.
The language, known as the “180-day rule,” allows government officials to treat any emails, text messages or documents stored on remote servers – popularly known as the cloud – as “abandoned” and therefore accessible using administrative subpoena power, a tactic that critics say circumvents due process.
As you rush to purge your Gmail and Dropbox accounts, however, be forewarned that even deleted files still could be fair game as long as copies exist on a third-party server somewhere.
“The government is essentially using an arcane loophole to breach the privacy rights of Americans,” Yoder said. “They couldn’t kick down your door and seize the documents on your desk, but they could send a request to Google and ask for all the documents that are in your Gmail account. And I don’t think Americans believe that the Constitution ends with the invention of the Internet” Rep. Kevin Yoder said.
Most Americans probably aren’t aware that the government doesn’t need a warrant to read the content of emails older than 180 days, Yoder said.
“In fact, when I discuss this with constituents at home, they’re frankly stunned to know that in this day and age government still believes they can sift through and spy on Americans’ email correspondence without any sort of due process,” Yoder said. “I would say many members of Congress were not aware of this and are becoming aware and the momentum is growing.”
Legislation to reform the Electronic Communications Privacy Act has foundered in Congress for years. But in the wake of revelations about the National Security Agency’s spying on Americans, momentum is building for the 2015 version of Yoder’s bill, the Email Privacy Act, as a growing coalition of liberals and conservatives find all-too-scarce common ground on the need to strengthen digital privacy protections.
Organizations as far apart on the political spectrum as the conservative Heritage Foundation and the liberal American Civil Liberties Union are united in support of the bill.
“Privacy crosses political aisles, especially when we see the government expanding domestic spying in secret in so many different ways,” said Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil liberties group that has been pushing the bill for years.
Major tech companies such as Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Apple and Google have been lobbying in favor of the bill, too.
But as Tien points out, the Email Privacy Act doesn’t address all of the concerns raised by the tech companies and privacy advocates. It does not, for example, restrain the government’s collection of a user’s metadata, which includes information about the communications a user sends and receives but not the content of those communications.
In other words, the Email Privacy Act would not extend Fourth Amendment protections to “non-content” data. Even if the bill becomes law, customers’ names, locations, addresses, routing information and subscriber network addresses still could be subpoenaed without a warrant and without notice, although accessing the content of their conversations would require the authorization of a judicial magistrate or judge.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/02/11/256304/government-wonders-whats-in-your.html
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#1. To: Deckard (#0)
Well, if they read mine, they will be incredibly bored. Possibly even bored to death. Should I make up some more?
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Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest" That means, the NSA, DHS, FBI etc., are spying on all your old emails. "
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