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The Insane Law That Lets Authorities Read Any Email Over 180 Days Old
- kevincrane 13y agoThe side-benefit of this shitstorm happening with the NSA and PRISM is that people outside of the tech community are actually starting to hear about this kind of stuff. This law should be common knowledge to a lot of people here, but it's good to see that a few more mainstream sources are starting to raise the issue as well.
- rayiner 13y agoHint: lots of people can read your e-mail because e-mails are transmitted in clear text over potentially numerous intermediate SMTP servers. Protocol not designed to protect privacy does not protect privacy: news at 11.
- smsm42 13y agoThe point is not encryption. The point is that the govt considers any stored communication not have expectation of privacy. Hint: you bank records, health records, credit card purchase data, etc. are also stored data at third-party provider, so by the same logic the govt can declare it not be protected by 4th amendment and thus be accessible without any warrant requirements. Since these data also are communicated electronically, they technically are electronic communications, and if they're stored beyond 180 days (as they universally are), they are accessible without warrants. Big Brother is watching you.
- rayiner 13y agoNone of that information is protected by the 4th amendment, and never has been (some of it is protected by statute). See: https://ssd.eff.org/your-computer/govt/privacy https://ssd.eff.org/your-computer/govt/privacy. The 4th amendment says: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects..." It does not say anything about your bank's, credit card company's, etc, records about you.
- smsm42 13y agoThis is very artificial distinction - almost all your personal data and all "papers" is the data "about you". Treating email or medical record as public knowledge without expectation of privacy just because it uses technical means belonging to a third party makes no sense - why then phone calls are protected, they use third party equipment too and can be very easily listened to.
- rayiner 13y agoAnalogizing to phone calls is a bad way to understand the 4th amendment because it's basically the product of a 1960's liberal court. It's a high watermark. It's law, but shouldn't be the only source you use to understand the meaning of the 4th amendment.[1] The distinction between your papers and other peoples' papers about you is not an "artificial distinction." Where I think you're going astray is the use of the word "public." The 4th amendment doesn't protect all information that you wouldn't want made public. It's narrower than that. Say you visit a prostitute. She keeps a log of the date and length of each visit. That's obviously not "public" information. But it's also not one of your "papers" or "effects" because you neither generated that information nor are you in custody of it. It pertains to you, but you don't get to invoke privacy privileges over all information that pertains to you. The same is true of bank records, credit card records, etc. When you entrust other people with your information, you can't invoke the 4th amendment to keep them from disclosing it, either voluntarily or pursuant to a subpoena. [1] Also note that in the 1960's phones were analog devices with no storage capability. When you talk about things like e-mail, which go through intermediate servers and can be stored or copied by anybody in the chain, your reasonable expectation of privacy in that information is very different than what it might be for a 1960's style phone.
- smsm42 13y agoI think with email expectation of privacy is exactly the same. And 4th amendment, saying "papers", obviously does not mean "only something that is never recorded can be private and protected from government". Obviously papers are very permanent things. In the same vein, then, mail should not be protected, since you give it to the postman to send, so nothing prevents them from opening the envelope, reading everything inside, copy it and tell the police. I don't see how this is any different from taking emails from private email mailbox. In both cases I expect only machines and people that need to read it for purposes of the transmission to access it, and only in parts that are necessary for such transmission to happen, and do not expect them to disclose it to anybody else.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- andyl 13y agoAll this stuff has been known for awhile. Glad its finally getting some attention - hope it lasts.
- wcunning 13y agoThere's a difference between seeing these stories in dribs and drabs all over the place and seeing them all on here today. It's sort of the forest vs. the trees, and I for one think that we're all starting to see the forest where we once only saw individual trees. It makes me hopeful that there will be enough outcry that there will at least be some slow down of political power-grab.
- pressurefree 13y agoslow down? these people are talking out of their ass and all this shits up for grabs...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- MikeKusold 13y agoMy biggest issue with this law is that it equates old emails to mail that is being thrown out. I consider my archive to be more of a filing cabinet though. This law was written when 15GB of email storage was unthinkable,and it needs to be updated to stay with the times.
- brigade 13y agoIt predates IMAP, which should say everything.
- smsm42 13y agoIt has nothing to do with the details of the technology, and everything to do with expanding government powers. They saw a new area in which the laws weren't established yet, and they established such laws that suit them most, and since nobody was watching them at the time, they got all the access they wanted. It it makes no sense to you, it's your problem, not theirs - you lost, they won.
- mpyne 13y agoActually it wouldn't let authorities simply read emails transmitted to a server under the suspect's control (assuming no intermediary copies are kept by a man-in-the-middle type of scenario). Whether people like it or not, rayiner is right on target with what the law says about privacy rights. It isn't that emails can be read because a law was passed to strip their privacy, emails can be read because a law hasn't been passed to strength privacy controls on email. The same issue occurred with telephones, beepers, cell phones, and more. They were considered fair game in many scenarios until specific laws were passed to make tapping them illegal and require warrants/wiretaps.
- ataggart 13y agoI am reminded of the words of Lysander Spooner [1]: "[T]he Constitution is no such instrument as it has generally been assumed to be; but that by false interpretations, and naked usurpations, the government has been made in practice a very widely, and almost wholly, different thing from what the Constitution itself purports to authorize. ... But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain --- that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist." [1] http://lysanderspooner.org/node/64 http://lysanderspooner.org/node/64
- mpyne 13y agoSure, but in a country of 300 million there will always be people who can make that argument about a constitution that forms any system of government. "Oh no, this government sucks and the constitution either authorized it or failed to prevent it from happening, ergo the constitution also sucks!"
- gregschlom 13y agoOT: the computer on Obama's desk is running Windows XP. Full-size image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/4753683646/in/set-72157624332927216/lightbox/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/4753683646/in/set-72...; Maybe it's time for the White House to upgrade...
- mitchty 13y agoIt is almost 3 years old as far as an image goes. Where I work we only late last year moved from XP to Windows 7. Large organizations move slowly.
- electromagnetic 13y agoFor many reasons organizations move slowly. One being security. No large organization, especially one handling sensitive information, is going to jump into the first release of any software.
- mitchty 13y agoNo argument there, just providing a counterpoint on the XP->whatever else at another large organization. It isn't a quick thing because there is so much to be checked/validated/tested/touched. I don't envy the admins that have to deal with it.
- dm2 13y agoThey probably just skipped Vista to save the tax payers a little money, that picture was in 2010. Imagine the headline "Whitehouse wants to spend XX millions upgrading to MS Vista. Is our money being spent wisely?"
- gridmaths 13y agoto linux
- fakeer 13y agoLooks like they took down the photo.
- einhverfr 13y agoWell the statute can't trump the Constitution. It isn't clear whether the 4th Amendment requires a warrant even if statute does not. This is something that the courts will have to work out. There are however many authorities on 4th Amendment law including many I would not describe as civil libertarians who do think that current precedent suggests that a warrant in fact would be required.
- acchow 13y agoPlease stop upvoting Business Insider until they improve they journalistic standards. We harm ourselves by encouraging and funding these people.
- rilut 13y agoEven I deleted it? :/