Appeals Court Holds that Email Privacy Protected by Fourth Amendment

In a landmark decision issued today in the criminal appeal of U.S. v. Warshak, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the government must have a search warrant before it can secretly seize and search emails stored by email service providers. Closely tracking arguments made by EFF in its amicus brief, the court found that email users have the same reasonable expectation of privacy in their stored email as they do in their phone calls and postal mail.

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This is huge, folks. Until today, all law enforcement agencies needed was a rubber-stamped court order to be able to snoop on your email. This action was clearly unconstitutional, per the 4th Amendment. Today, the Constitution of the United States of America was upheld, and no more unreasonable searches on our email will occur. If authorities want to snoop on your email, they had better have a valid reason, and they had better damn well get a warrant.

What surprises me here is that I found this on a blog, and the mainstream media is not running with it. This is huge news, but I do understand that there are bigger stories out there for the major news outlets, such as Angelina Jolie's latest escapades, which Hollywood star is using which drug, who is going in for rehab, who is getting divorced, who is winning on Dancing With the Stars, who is having sex with who, and other events that our media whores feel are more important in our lives than mundane questions on Constitutional issues that affect us all on a daily basis.

Article is here.

Good ruling, but dont think for a second the government will actually follow through.

Awesome post Dan!

Know your rights. LE needs a warrant specifically written to confiscate your computer and files.

Knowing a fair amount about this case (I watched the opening statements, voire dire and closing arguments) as well as Martin Weinberg vs Asst US Attorney Ben Glassman (both brilliant graduates of Harvard Law) before the Court of Appeals and having read the complete decision I note as follows

1) the Court ruled that the federal agents had a good faith belief concerning the emails meaning that the evidence was NOT excluded

2) One of the AUSAs who prosecuted the case made "improper statements" but not enough to change the decision--btw the defense was constantly attacking the personal integrity of the federal prosecutors, Kadon, Porter and JOseph and the Postal INspector Alejandro Algamaier.

3) all the convictions of Warshack were sustained. Even though his sentence was sent back to be done again, the guideline range was LIFE and Senior Judge S Arthur Spiegel had issued a "downward departure" to give him 25 years. Even if the relative offense level is diminished, the guideline sentence will be at least 25 years and probably more.

4) Harriet warshack caught a break at sentencing, she stands still convicted of the major conspiracy count--Judge SAS allowed her to remain free during the appeal on the grounds she had some mortal illness-interesting to see what sort of sentence she finally served.

Overall a win for the government

TD, what is voire dire, and your point 2...is that not kinda a ****ty strategy?

Redress said:

TD, what is voire dire, and your point 2...is that not kinda a ****ty strategy?

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Jury selection-questioning the panel is called voire dire. each side is trying to get "favorable jurors" defense attorneys often get away with stuff that the prosecution cannot. The Federal Prosecutor was accused of "vouching for his witnesses". He also is a Lt Col JAG officer and made comments to his military service. However, the decision noted Sr Judge Spiegel had "eased the sting of those comments with the salve of a curative instruction to the jury"

Defense counsel basically claimed that the prosecutors and inspectors conspired to screw over Warshack

So then doesn't this mean that the Patriot Act is unconstitutional ?

Resist the gov. said:

So then doesn't this mean that the Patriot Act is unconstitutional ?

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Nope not at all

This story was on the front page of the Cincinnati Enquirer this morning

The decision in this case seems to largely support all sorts of surveillance at the government's discretion, even beyond what is allowed in the 4th amendment. Rather, the opinion in this case strikes down some of the methods the government used. You'll notice that the court at no point mentioned needing a warrant and probable cause to perform all these searches.

The 4th amendment is still just a fond memory.

Paschendale said:

The decision in this case seems to largely support all sorts of surveillance at the government's discretion, even beyond what is allowed in the 4th amendment. Rather, the opinion in this case strikes down some of the methods the government used. You'll notice that the court at no point mentioned needing a warrant and probable cause to perform all these searches.

The 4th amendment is still just a fond memory.

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reasonableness is the issue