A federal court has ruled that stored email is afforded the same constitutional protections as telephone conversations and email being transmitted over the wire. Law enforcement agencies will need to obtain a search warrant to access it. I expect that the government will appeal the ruling, but it makes sense technologically speaking. There’s no reason to grant different levels of protection to email if it’s traveling over the wire than if it’s on the hard drive of a server. Nice victory for the EFF.
Search warrants now required to access email
A federal court has ruled that stored email is afforded the same constitutional protections as telephone conversations and email being transmitted over the wire. Law enforcement agencies will need to obtain a search warrant to access it. I expect that the government will appeal the ruling, but it makes sense technologically speaking. There’s no reason to grant different levels of protection to email if it’s traveling over the wire than if it’s on the hard drive of a server. Nice victory for the EFF.
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