Warrant-less email snatching by cops, Feds under threat by draft law The US House Judiciary Committee has unanimously approved the Email Privacy Act (EPA) – which will require the police and Feds to get a warrant before searching email accounts. Under the current rules established by the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), officers and agents only need a subpoena, which can be …
Feinstein isn't up for election until 2018, so no hope of doing anything about her. But Burr is, and the first poll in NC gives him just a 5 point lead over the democratic challenger, with a libertarian candidate polling 7%.
Between Trump scrambling things up on the republican side, that challenge from the libertarian candidate and North Carolina's controversial new law, Burr could be in for quite a fight so there's hope on that front! The problem is, he might be replaced by someone of like mind, and if the democrats retake the senate then Feinstein will be chair of the intelligence committee.
Nobodies tackling the new elephant in the room: Databases on the police side of the court firewall.
Court allows access to data for case X, police make a big snooperbase and keep all the data they receive on their side of the court firewall. Searching all the stored data for all future cases Y, Z, etc. and anything else they like, there's nothing limiting its use for investigation, random fishing, special requests from newspapers, all possible.
All those searches done outside of court orders. Effectively a reach-around any judicial process you had.
Worse when a court permits an ongoing feed of data. Or a class of data (i.e. not tied to a suspect) or worst case an ongoing feed of a class of data, none of that is limited to cases for which there is probable cause. So you're stripping 'probable cause'.
A regulator or ombudsman to green light the data use doesn't work. In effect they've stripped the right to judicial process and replaced it with one man in an office.
He simply asks them what they've used their data for, and they writes a report. i.e. worse than self regulation, because they have someone to hide behind.
So take a look at Snoopers Charter. Theresa May is proposing a judge will approve ongoing feeds of classes of data, not tied to a suspect, for a purpose. A judge will approve the purpose, which is just putting a Judge in the regulators office and pretending its a 'judicial process'.
Well, that's one of five and a bit federal laws that need to be fixed before talk about Privacy Shield has any real meaning. Give or take a decade, Americans may actually end up with a working protection of their rights under the 4th Amendment.
Or, put another way, the same rights the EU is seeking to secure in the US for EU citizens.
They're not big on irony over there, are they?
It would be a good idea for the bill to clarify that email providers are trustees of their customers' emails. The pretext of the Microsoft case AIUI is that the emails are part of Microsoft's own business records. Clarifying the trust issue would ensure that the Microsoft grab would endanger the entire US trustee industry: everything from safe deposit companies to the financial industry. I doubt any US court would countenance doing that.
Under the new EPA legislation, Microsoft and any other cloud provider would be entitled to ask for a warrant from law enforcement before handing over a subject's emails.
"Entitled" to ask? Not "law enforcement is required to get"?!
So if my email provider didn't care they could just go "meh" and hand over all of my email without any reason or cause just because some cop or G-Man asked for it?
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