Why DOJ Didn't Need a "Super Search Warrant" To Snoop On Fox News' E-mail 330
awaissoft writes "If attorney general Eric Holder wanted to perform even a momentary Internet wiretap on Fox News' e-mail accounts, he would have had to persuade a judge to approve what lawyers call a 'super search warrant.' A super search warrant's requirements are exacting: Intercepted communications must be secured and placed under seal. Real-time interception must be done only as a last resort. Only certain crimes qualify for this technique, the target must be notified, and additional restrictions apply to state and local police conducting real-time intercepts. But because of the way federal law was written nearly half a century ago, Holder was able to obtain a normal search warrant — lacking those extensive privacy protections — that allowed federal agents to secretly obtain up to six years of email correspondence between Fox News correspondent James Rosen and his alleged sources."
Re:What did Fox News do? (Score:3, Interesting)
I know they are stupid and shouldn't be called a news show, but what did they do that requires wiretapping?
Perhaps the more relevant question should be what does anyone do to justify wiretapping, which in this police state, amounts to jack shit.
(I didn't use the word "warrant" here, because that might imply they need to follow the law and obtain one. They don't.)
But hey, keep arguing red vs. blue and vote for that two-party system. You see how much fucking good it does...
Re:What did Fox News do? (Score:5, Interesting)
I know they are stupid and shouldn't be called a news show, but what did they do that requires wiretapping?
Journalism.
No, seriously: James Rosen asked someone at the State Department questions about North Korea.
Because that apparently could involve classified information (not that it necessarily did), Obama's Department of Justice pulled six years of Rosen's email.
Re:Not News to Fox (Score:5, Interesting)
Under the law they used for the warrant, they didn't have to notify until 90 days after the termination of the intercept.
But since the intercept was continuous, and for all we know, still on-going, they never notified about Rosen's mail.
The whole article is a mess of obfuscation until you read to the bottom of the the story where it FINALLY gets to the point:
The gradual supplanting of the POP protocol, where messages typically were not left on mail servers and available for law enforcement, by the newer server-based IMAP protocol also encouraged this shift.
Any mail you keep on a service for more than 6 months is considered abandoned, and fair game. This means ANY IMAP account outside of your premises is wide open to seizure.
Which means every google/microsoft/yahoo mail account is fair game under the obsolete 68 law unless you take careful pains to only and always use POP, and never leave a copy on the server.
The law is clearly being deliberately misused, and the mail is not abandoned, as long as the account is being used.
Re:Blame game (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly.
Everyone is so worried about whose ox was gored and whose ox did the goring that they are totally willing
to overlook that we are all bleeding. And its not JUST this issue or JUST wiretaps.
The constitution is in tatters, our freedoms are an illusion, and everybody thinks that as long as
they can drive to a ball game and have a beer everything is just fine.
Just pass a fucking new law (Score:5, Interesting)
Congress should pass an adjusted law and move on rather than making it a witch hunt. Trying to milk it as a "dirty conspiracy" will just pull BOTH parties (deeper) into the mud.
Computerized gerrymandering is part of the problem: politicians redraw their own districts to be slanted politically so that all they have to do is kiss up to extremists to get re-elected rather than do real work.
Re:There you have it (Score:3, Interesting)
Please tell me what you would consider a scandal.
Mitt Romney said 47% of people don't pay income taxes and so his tax cut message might not appeal to them. Scandal-palooza!
(Sorry dead Mexicans and grieving widows and orphans and parents of murdered children. You lose.)