Justice Dept. to Congress: Don’t Saddle 4th Amendment on Us

[Roland99]

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

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 protection. However, the law demands warrants for the authorities to seize e-mail from a person’s hard drive.

A coalition of internet service providers and other groups, known as Digital Due Process, has 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 and 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.

I've ceased being dumbfounded by the ways this administration has failed us.

[FiveGoodMen]

1. "It's just a god-damned piece of paper"

Who said that?

[Vincardog]

2. I've ceased being dumbfounded by the ways this administration has failed us. +1

[Horse with no Name]

4. Ain't that the truth?

The lines between the two parties are blurred...hard to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys anymore.

[Angry Dragon]

3. It has been said that, 'They hate us for our freedoms'

Not sure which ones we have left, if any.................

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. They're trying to attack our web e-mail.

[Roland99]

6. Makes me glad I have my own domain name (a few actually)

only use my web emails for generic crap like newsletters or stuff I don't care about.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. What is an easy to use reliable mail archive software?

[Roland99]

10. Honestly, I'm not sure

I've been using Outlook Express (and now Windows Mail or Windows Live Mail or whateverthehell it's called in Windows Vista/7) for years now. I move stuff to an archive folder every so often and backup to DVD once in a great while.

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. I tried this, but I can't reaccess the data.

[Roland99]

12. it's the not easiest of methods but it works

At least in the old days of OE, one could easily adjust the pathname that OE would read to read emails from a different store (or move the files out of the current folder to a temp location and copy in some old versions and then re-run OE)

I haven't tried that yet with Vista/Windows 7, though.

[dmr]

7. They say Constitutional safeguards imposes unnecessary burdens

on the warrants.

Well, isn't that the point?

Prove there is a need to access any American's email. You just cannot have fishing expeditions.

:grr:

[nykym]

8. Well Yes it needs to be changed

most email is now automatically deleted over 30 days unles you save it. If you save it that means it is private to you and that you will revisit it in the future. Thus it is not abandoned but stored for future use.

[stockholmer]

13. Obama Justice Dept..left-cover for the police state yet again,fascistic chilling effects all around

:puke: