Email Privacy Protected by Fourth Amendment! The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals

#Email #Privacy Protected by Fourth Amendment! http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld Email Privacy Protected by Fourth Amendment! in the criminal appeal of U.S. v. Warshak case.
The court has ruled, the government must have a search warrant before it can secretly seize and search emails stored by email service providers sighting that email users have the same reasonable expectation of privacy in their email as they do in their phone calls and postal mail.
Given the fundamental similarities between email and traditional forms of communication [like postal mail and telephone calls], it would defy common sense to afford emails lesser Fourth Amendment protection.... It follows that email requires strong protection under the Fourth Amendment; otherwise the Fourth Amendment would prove an ineffective guardian of private communication, an essential purpose it has long been recognized to serve.... [T]he police may not storm the post office and intercept a letter, and they are likewise forbidden from using the phone system to make a clandestine recording of a telephone call--unless they get a warrant, that is. It only stands to reason that, if government agents compel an ISP to surrender the contents of a subscriber's emails, those agents have thereby conducted a Fourth Amendment search, which necessitates compliance with the warrant requirement....
Since I am no lawyer and as this is a sensitive matter please follow the link below, which is to EFF, which has published a very descriptive post with links to many documents that is relevant to the case.
EFF Breaking News.