Feds to Congress: Don’t Saddle 4th Amendment on Us

[IDemo]

Source: Wired News

By David Kravets
April 7, 2011 4:06 pm

The Obama administration is urging Congress not to adopt legislation that would impose constitutional safeguards on Americans’ e-mail stored in the cloud.

As the law stands now, the authorities may obtain cloud e-mail without a warrant if it is older than 180 days, thanks to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act adopted in 1986. At that time, e-mail left on a third-party server for six months was considered to be abandoned, and thus enjoyed less privacy protections. However, the law demands warrants for the authorities to seize e-mail from a person’s hard drive.

A collection of internet service providers and other groups known as the “Digital Due Process” coalition have lobbied for an update to the law to treat both cloud and home-stored e-mail the same, and thus require a probable-cause warrant for access. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on that topic Tuesday.

The companies, including Google, AOL, AT&T, maintain that the law should be changed to reflect that consumers increasingly access their e-mail on servers, instead of downloading it to their hard drives, as a matter of course. But the Obama administration testified that imposing constitutional safeguards on e-mail stored in the cloud would be an unnecessary burden on the government. Probable-cause warrants would only get in the government’s way.

Read more: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/04/fourth-amendment-email-2/

[Newsjock]

1. Remind me again exactly which party is in power?

Probable-cause warrants would only get in the government’s way.

Damn that pesky probable cause.

To answer my own question: It's neither the Republicans nor the Democrats who are in power. Call it the corporatists, the fascists, the whateverists ... it's something that transcends political parties. And it's un-American.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. And yet, we STILL are encouraged to stick to the "2 party" system.

Hmmmmmm

[Sherman A1]

3. Makes ya wonder

doesn't it?

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. Actually, no. I stop "wondering" some time ago.

But I am happy to see a LOT of folks around here are wondering..it's a good start.

[Sherman A1]

5. Agreed but,

some are wondering and many are simply vehemently toting the (He's great or at least the lesser of two evils) party line and those are the ones that cause me to worry.

:hi:

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. You ever hear the story of the crab pot?

Long time ago, when my kids were small, I took them out onto the pier, and we watched people fishing and people even catching crabs.
One "old" guy was putting his crabs into a big round basket, and it had no lid.
One of my sons ( he was about 5 then ) watched the crabs for a minute and then said
"Hey , mister, you don't have a lid, the crabs are trying to crawl out".
The old man came over and told him, in a very nice way:" Don't need a lid. Watch.
Whenever one of the crabs starts to get close to the top, the other crabs grab hold of him and pull him down".

We watched.
Sure enuff......

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

9. Every attempt to push a 3rd party ends up helping

the other end of the spectrum.

But yes, I vote "Democratic" when I'd rather vote "Liberal"

[glinda]

8. It is ugly is what it is.

[Kip Humphrey]

6. Its such a burden for government to adhere to law and the constitution!

TOUGH SHIT!

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

10. More "Patriot Act" pieces from our President's minions

Hate to be burdened by "due process" or anything tedious like that.

[FlyByNight]

11. One set of "laws" for the wealthy and well-connected...

...and another set for the rest of us.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely - regardless of "party".