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Court To Reconsider Decision On ISP Mail Snooping 186

Posted by timothy from the that's-nice dept.
thpr writes "In June, Slashdot reported that ISPs can read email (according to a decision by the 1st circuit court of appeals). In short, the court felt it was not a violation of U.S. wiretap laws. Last month, the Justice Department asked for the full court to reconsider the decision. C-Net now reports that the court will 'reconsider its June 29 decision'. Arguments are scheduled for Dec 8."
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Court To Reconsider Decision On ISP Mail Snooping More

Court To Reconsider Decision On ISP Mail Snooping

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  • Kind of link not having curtains (Score:4, Interesting)

    by stecoop ( 759508 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @12:01PM (#10452004) Journal
    I would tend to agree with this ruling. I believe that an individual should protect her property as it's kind of like leaving a sofa on the curb not expecting it to be removed or like not having curtains on your windows and expecting people to not look in as the drive by. The property owner of the email should be protecting it via encryption or its there for anyone to read.

    I like double rot-13; if it is encrypted and someone cracks it than I guess you should find a better encryption algorithm.

    • Re:Kind of link not having curtains (Score:5, Insightful)

      by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @12:08PM (#10452076)
      The property owner of the email should be protecting it via encryption or its there for anyone to read.

      Laws like the ones are talking about will eventually cause the population to do exactly that but it's not exactly as if the criminals weren't doing that already.

      You will be labelled a traitor if you protect yourself and [tinfoil warning] you could eventually be held against your will for crimes against the government for protecting your personal privacy [/tinfoil].

      Remember that anyone who encrypts their email obviously has something to hide and doesn't support their government and their own freedom!

      • Re:Kind of link not having curtains (Score:4, Insightful)

        by stecoop ( 759508 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @12:15PM (#10452142) Journal
        Remember that anyone who encrypts their email obviously has something to hide and doesn't support their government and their own freedom!

        There are so many sides to a coin - case in point you brought up a very good flip side.

        But lets say that enough people started recognizing that email isn't *gasp* private and, visioning everyone knowing email isn't private; that all email (lets extend it to internet traffic) became encrypted. This ruling only helps the civil libertarian groups on getting the word out to protect the civil liberties at an individual level.

        • Re:Kind of link not having curtains (Score:4, Insightful)

          by maxpublic ( 450413 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @12:27PM (#10452265) Homepage
          Or, let's recognize that email is just the 21st century version of paper mail, and should be treated as such. There's no logical reason why mail transmitted electronically should have less protection than mail transmitted by post.

          Max
          • it is, except that most e-mail is equivalent to a postcard since without opening the envelope it is possible to read... BTW it is legal to read a postcard addressed to someone else, it is illegal to open or even destroy a stamped envelope intended for someone else including your spouse, parents, roommates or children.
            • Post cards do not have envelopes and so can be unintentionally viewed. An e-mail would require the sysadmin or employee to actually intentionally retrieve it from their system to read it.
              • "An e-mail would require the sysadmin or employee to actually intentionally retrieve it from their system to read it."

                What if they are using a network sniffer? Email is passed in plain text. Further, a lot of info about the email is stored in the logs (e.g. sender and subject). For example, when I worked at a university, there was a faculty member who required 80 MB of space (default was 10; anyone could get 20 by asking; 80 required special permission) to get emails from the gay.black.male mailing list
                • ...and all that's physically protecting your postal mail is an envelope.

                  Although I can understand that there are reasons to emphasize that email isn't secure, there are also some very good reasons to place legal restrictions on reading other people's email without their consent. It's in the same vein as the "legalized security" of postal mail.

                  Sure, you still have to worry about getting hax0red, just as you have to worry about people swiping your mail or beige boxing your phone. With laws on the books, tho
            • It is illegal to go through someone elses mailbox and read their post cards.

              Even if you are the post master.

              And post cards are hand delivered and consequently have a low expectation of privacy. Email is not hand delivered.

          • Hardly true. The postal service is government run - the laws that make it illegal to read sealed mail are part of the system of trust that allows us to place our private corrospondence in the hands of the government. It is part of the service you purchase when you buy your stamps.

            E-Mail is not run by the government. It is run mostly by private industry - though anyone can set up thier own mail server no one can argue that private industry does not own the vast majority of hardware and resources that proces
          • Why does the government not merely carry letters, but monopolize that service? If it were merely about delivery to remote and uneconomic places, why wouldn't the government remove its monopoly and do only those deliveries nobody else bothers with? If it were about money, why not carry far more lucrative parcels? Because it wants the opportunity to steam your letters open, snoop through them and censor what you say.

            In that regard, email is already better.
        • Yeah, great. How would you feel if this was extended to snail mail? Think it couldn't happen....think again. How soon before the FBI etc. decides that terrorists are communicating by snail mail and seek powers to intercept and read mail from people they *think* could be, might be sending/receiving mail to or from suspected terrorists or terrorist orgnizations.
      • Remember that anyone who encrypts their email obviously has something to hide and doesn't support their government and their own freedom!

        And in future putting snail mail in an envelope will be defacto evidence of criminal intent.

        At that point the Post Office will only deliver mail contained in government certified lock boxes for which they hold a master key.

        KFG

      • Laws like the ones are talking about will eventually cause the population to do exactly that but it's not exactly as if the criminals weren't doing that already.

        There's a really interesting paradox in that. By protecting the rights of the majority of citizens, it actually makes law enforcement easier than if you universally clamp down on freedom. It's just like illegal search; a cop might think their job is easier if they can search everyone at will, but in reality it makes it harder because it make

    • So you dont mind if I go though your mail in your curb side mail box? After all, that letter from your sister wasn't encrypted, nor was your paycheck.
      • that mailbox is my property, and it has a door. it is not the same as an email sitting on server someone else owns.
        • But you don't own the postal service mailboxes. So in that case, you don't mind if they rip open your envelope (don't worry, they'll tape it back up), to see what's inside? Maybe photocopy it and store it in their records? Share it with a few people?

          I can see the utility of "wire tapping" email, but I can also see how people have an expectation of privacy when they send an email. They expect those "To" and "From" fields to mean something.
        • Correction, a mailbox you're paying for that someone else owns. I don't "own" the physical box at my local post office, but they aren't allowed to read all my mail on a whim either.
          • Correction, a mailbox you're paying for that someone else owns. I don't "own" the physical box at my local post office, but they aren't allowed to read all my mail on a whim either.

            The USPS is a government institution and the government does not own the physical letter. Once it gets in the government's hands it ceases to be your property and becomes the property of the addressee.

            With electronic mail, the physical medium that on which the message is located is owned by the mail provider. Thus they shoul
        • "that mailbox is my property, and it has a door. it is not the same as an email sitting on server someone else owns."

          Not true. In many instances the postal service owns the mailbox just as the garbage service owns the cans. Even if they dont, most people rent their home and so still dont own the box.

    • Yeah, I would tell my bosses that I am legaly allowed to read their emails. However in order to prevent me from doing so they should use encryption. Since it would be illegal for me to decrypt anything encrypted. (Even if it is only rot 13)

    • Re:Kind of link not having curtains (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Read The Original Article.

      At issue here isn't just "anyone" reading the e-mail--it's the ISP. Also, the people who were snooped were not the SENDERS of e-mail--they were the recievers. You can't encrypt someone ELSE's mail to you. Finally, this wasn't a case of "well, potentially anyone can read your e-mail," this was a case specifically of data mining e-mail for commercial purposes.

      The original case had someone who ran a bookstore and also provided e-mail service to customers. He then SCANNED THEIR I
      • You can't encrypt someone ELSE's mail to you. And I think this is one if not the key point. I wish more people would RTFA. I can be as causios as any tin foil hat crowd but that wont do me any good when someone sends me an unencrypted email.
      • Consider the reprecussions if this is legal. Microsoft (or GMail or Yahoo) would be within their rights to 1.) ready your incoming e-mail, 2.) look for commercially useful data about your shopping habits or personal preferences, and 3.) act on that information.

        They do all that already -- GMail admits it and is open; the other can and probably do, and are secretive about it. The real question is what, precisely, is allowed in step 3 (Act on That Information).

        -Billy
    • This is nothing like having no drapes. If you want to persue that analogy, think drapes the contractor can open any time without your permission, or even without your notice, and every time you upgrade them it's within their legal right to attempt a circumvention. Finish off with the government considering a law preventing you shutting the drapes in a fail-safe manner because they want a peek too and you're getting close. It's been obvious to anyone bothering to look that the world is shifting entirely to
    • No. It is kind of like kind of like the post office having the right to open and read your mail.

  • All they need is to declare that the FBI is an ISP... Voilà, problem solved!

  • Let me get this right (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sqwubbsy ( 723014 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @12:03PM (#10452032) Homepage Journal
    John Ashcroft is fighting for greater privacy for email?
    Wonder how the groupthink will justify this.
    • Well, they still have the Patriot Act, at least for now, so if he wants to look at someone's email he still can. They just need to be someone he considers a person of interest.
      • But the Patriot Act merely extends investigatory rights based on supposed terrorism similarly to how RICO works for racketeering.
        The threat to individuals is no greater and no less than it was previously, and the threshhold for proving racketeering is a lot lower than terrorism.
        I can't figure out why people get so bunged up about this.
    • The Gov't can read your email if they wish anyhow. This would prohibit private citizens from doing so by closing the loophole that said "if the read it while it's on the mail spooler and NOT right off the wire it's OK". It's a bad loophole, it should be closed and closing it doesnt hurt Homeland Security any. The Gov't is only going to be reading your email if you are a "bad guy" anyway. They are more likley to snoop on your cell phone calls than your email. Of course if you ARE a bad guy and give out your

    • Re:Let me get this right (Score:2, Interesting)

      by eSims ( 723865 )
      " John Ashcroft is fighting for greater privacy for email?"

      Of course. If everyone realizes how insecure email really is then encryption will become more prevalent . More ecrypted traffic means a lower singal to noise ratio and much harder to find those conversations that the Feds want to snoop on.

      Don't kid yourself. When the Federal Government wants to read your encrypted email they can. But finding what email is worth decrpyting is much harder when everyone is encrypting their email, but as it stands now

    • Re:Let me get this right (Score:4, Insightful)

      by kfg ( 145172 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @12:16PM (#10452147)
      Wonder how the groupthink will justify this.

      They wish to consolodate the power of surviellence to themselves, and themselves alone.

      That way they can not only snoop on the people, but on the snoopers as well; and all without having to worry about being snooped on.

      Pretty slick setup really, if they're allowed to pull it off.

      KFG
    • It's an election year
    • Ashcroft was one of the lead opponents of the movement for key escrow/Clipper chip when he was a Senator. Kerry was one of the lead proponents of it.

      Ashcroft had a great pro-privacy record in the Senate; now that he's AG, a different faction pulls his strings.
      • Ashcroft had a great pro-privacy record in the Senate; now that he's AG, a different faction pulls his strings.

        Exactly. This really isn't a Democrat/Republican issue. Whichever party is in control wants more power for the government at the expense of civil liberties, because they're the ones that get to wield that power. Kerry on the Patriot Act [reason.com]:

        "You can sum up the problems with the Patriot Act in two words: John Ashcroft... The real problem with the Patriot Act is not the law, but the abuse of the law."

  • This seems like a Reversal of the usual policy (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It seem like a reversal of policty for the DoJ, but perhaps it is because they want to be the _only_ group to be able to snoop mail.

    • It seem like a reversal of policty for the DoJ, but perhaps it is because they want to be the _only_ group to be able to snoop mail.

      Also, if everyone _assumes_ someone is reading their email, then it might lead to real efforts to use encryption by default in email clients - exactly what the DoJ doesn't want.

  • There's an issue here? (Score:5, Funny)

    by CSG_SurferDude ( 96615 ) <wedaa.wedaa@com> on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @12:09PM (#10452084) Homepage Journal

    There's an issue here?

    I read my users' email all the time, to, uh, ummmmm, help tune my, um, spam filters.

    Yeah, that's it, to tune my spam filters.

  • Why is ISP mail readding bad? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Theobon ( 691491 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @12:10PM (#10452098)
    ISPs can read mail. It is rather impossible to stop them from being able to read plain text data. It is a matter of if they choose to not do so.

    If I placed a confidential document on the street with no protection can I arrest you for reading it?

    Allowing Email to be read would help prevent spam and other illegal activities.

    If you want to protect your Email you can encrypt it using one of the many available free applications/protocals. Which I recommend you do anyways!
    • How would this help prevent spam, with all the spam filters, etc... already in place, your ISP isn't going to read your email and delete all of the spam for you, especially not if it is getting past their spam filters.

      it is an invasion of privacy, they are service providers, not regulators.

      Either way, carnivore sees everything you do anyway, but being from a small town with a small town ISP, i'd rather not have my neighbor who works at the ISP reading my email.

      Especially since there may be usernames,pass
    • Or gmail? Or yahoo mail? You CAN'T send/read encrypted mail. Sure, there's husmail, but they only give 32 megs. Versus 1 gig on gmail.

      • Or gmail? Or yahoo mail? You CAN'T send/read encrypted mail.

        That's funny, I just sent a PGP-encrypted e-mail from my gmail account a few days ago. It seemed to work fine, including the encrypted response I got from the recipient (or a man-in-the-middle gov't snoop). Just because there isn't a "Click here to PGP encrypt your e-mail" button in gmail, doesn't mean you can't do it externally and paste the ciphertext into the nice little box.

        -paul

      • Or gmail? Or yahoo mail? You CAN'T send/read encrypted mail. Sure, there's husmail, but they only give 32 megs. Versus 1 gig on gmail.

        Sure you can. PGP can encrypt the contents of the clipboard. It's a manual process, selecting the text, encrypting (manually selecting the recipient's key), then pasting the encrypted text into your browser, but it's easy enough to do. You can encrypt anything with this method, including posts to message boards.

    • Re:Why is ISP mail readding bad? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Say you're an ISP sysadmin, and you have a long time customer that you *strongly* suspect is a (very slick) spammer. After hours of googling, you manage to trace this individual all the way back to Spamford Wallace. We are talking about a VERY big fish here. They are not spamming from your systems or even using you as a drop box; rather, they have a shell account that they use to run a bunch of lynx processes that they use to monitor their spam sites and alert them when one is shut off.

      Do you read his
    • That's not true. Surely you must agree that anyone who reads mail is doing so consciously. Your only defense is in saying that the ruling is unenforceable, given that just about any employee could peruse the plaintext database.

      I think it's very enforceable. Server software could easily make it difficult for casual employees to view customer mail, and ISPs could be compelled to have such software under due diligence of the law.

      So are you going to argue that the fact that a few select administrators or an e
    • My question is, what makes an ISP? If I give
      my roommate a shell account does it become illegal for me to view certain sectors of my hard drive? Does there have to be some sort of consideration?
    • Well, for one thing, nobody is saying ISP's can't technically (and easily) read plain text emails stored on their systems.

      The purpose of such a law would be to allow penalties/punishment in situations where it can be proven that an employee of an ISP read someone else's mai and used the information in some sort of harmful manner.

      We've already got plenty of laws in place that work the same way. For example, there are laws against eavesdropping on cellular phone conversations, yet hundreds of thousands of

    • Re:Why is ISP mail readding bad? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AviLazar ( 741826 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @12:33PM (#10452316) Journal
      If the document was labeled confidential - yes. Poor security measures do not invalidate your right to privacy. Why?: One of the reasons for this is because some people can't afford high security measures, second security measures may fail, three security measures can be broken, and a few other reasons i cannot recall.
      A great example I received from a law class I took (I am no legal expert, but my professor is) was a hypothetical situation: If I leave my car engine running, with the windows open and ten thousand dollars on the seat... Would someone who took the car and/or money be liable both criminal and civil courts? Yes.
      Fast forward to computer: If I send a text email and at the top of the email it says "the following message is intended for John Schmoe ONLY", anyone reading it is in violation of privacy acts (unless they are authorized to do so by groups like the proper authorities, or contracts.)

  • email should have the same standard (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SpamKu ( 809119 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @12:11PM (#10452101)
    of privacy as phones.

    why sould it be that once I use a computer and/or the internet I must see my rights go down the tubes?

    Hopefully, this is part of the reason why the Court is reconsidering its decision
    • The telephone network and internet have very different makeups, and what makes sense for one does not necisarrily make sense for another.

      With the telephone system, you only have a handfull of companies which have control of and legal access to the communication lines. They are tightly regulated by the government, and thus laws are fairly effective at protecting your privacy. With the telephone system, up until the 1950's, there was no method of encrypting conversations, and it was much later until these te
    • To be honest, I wouldn't worry about anyone reading your email. After working at an ISP i've realized that 99.9999999% of all email is the most banal, trivial, boring shit you will ever see in your life. You would probably have a better time memorizing all the digits of PI.

      Note: Obviously never read anybodys email just to snoop, usualy involving hte tech support of some kind (i.e. why won't my email work? Well you have a 9 megs of photos you're trying to pull down over a 56k modem in a rural area where the
    • Yes but whose rights have primacy?

      The ISP owns the connection, the hardware, and yes, all the files that reside therein. In the absence of some contractual obligation, they should have the right to read *any* file on their systems, including your mail. When you talk about your privacy rights you are talking about infrigning on the property rights of the ISPs.

      An NA pal of mine who works for a local ISP confirms that his employer takes the same stand. But it is worthwhile noting that they have a polic

  • Read my mail (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @12:11PM (#10452102)
    I'm going to email myself the Goatse image 1000times/day from now on so whenever they read my email they get my opinions stated to them bluntly.

  • Seems to me... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xstonedogx ( 814876 ) <xstonedogx@gmail.com> on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @12:18PM (#10452182)
    ...using the wire-tapping law seems like trying to fit an oblong peg into a round hole. Close, but no dice.

    The solution here is either to encrypt your email or to create a new law specifically forbidding ISPs from reading your email.

    I prefer the former method to the latter. Laws forbidding an ISP from reading your email don't protect your email. They can act as a deterrent, but first you have to find out it occured, and then you have to prosecute. And then your email has already been read.

    • Re:Seems to me... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Tyndmyr ( 811713 ) *
      I don't see a reason to create a law for it at all. Sure, none of us want others snooping through our mail... encryption exists for a reason. Also, if a company gets a reputation for snooping in customers mail, what do you think that will do for their business?

      Let the free market deal with it.

    • Why is it either/or?
    • I'm sure you meant to say:

      "Create a new low specifically forbidding anyone from reading my mail, without my express written permission or a court order".

      The reason I like it violating the Federal Wiretapping laws, is that I believe those laws are binding to the Federal Gov't also. I like it when the JD argues that it should be given less ability to intrude on a private citizens privacy.

      The one thing I have against encryption, is that it's not terribly graceful in the face of an error. If my disk has

  • Stored Communications Act? (Score:5, Informative)

    by spiritraveller ( 641174 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @12:31PM (#10452292)
    You can read the June opinion here [uscourts.gov].

    You can read the order for an en banc rehearing here [uscourts.gov].

    One of the questions they ask the parties to argue for the rehearing is "Whether the conduct at issue in this case could have been additionally, or alternatively, prosecuted under the Stored Communications Act?".

    Hmmm, I wonder what the Stored Communications Act is? It seems the court might be worried that the SCA (whatever it is) already applies to email-snooping, so that the Wiretap Act should not apply.

  • No law will stop someone from reading it. It is still transmitted in a format anyone can read. Laws miss the point when it comes to this aspect of privacy. Not that I care if someone reads my email - I know it is not secure when I send it!
  • The full story for this was written several days ago [securityfocus.com] by Mark Rasch on SecurityFocus, and it goes into much more detail than the CNet article. Mark Rasch is a former head of the Justice Department's computer crime unit.

    Disappointing to see Slashdot is mostly just mainstream big media news now.

  • This is a good reason why ISPs are private groups (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ShatteredDream ( 636520 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @12:42PM (#10452405) Homepage
    Imagine if we go the route that many groups want which is to have local and state governments provide their own taxpayer-subsidized WiFi internet access, as is being talked about for Houston. It would be a disaster for civil liberties. It would be so much easier for the government to spy on you under the guise of the law and you'd have no recourse but to pray that private ISPs are still in business in your area, which they very well might not be with a cheap state-sponsored competitor.

    There are of course limits that have to be placed on how private your messages are on an ISP's network. I personally have no problem with somebody that the ISP has detected has been systematically, egregiously violating state and federal laws with the ISP's resources getting spied on a bit to cover the ISP's ass. The ISP has a right, if it **happens** to find you systematically violating the law and putting it in any way at risk to see what you are up to. The only alternatives are a world where criminals have complete freedom of movement and the other is where the police actively spy on the public. I happen to like neither, but that's just me.

    You also have to wonder why someone who is sending stuff that is so sensitive that they wouldn't want anyone but the recipient seeing it, wouldn't encrypt the message first. If nothing more write a little script that that scrambles the message based on some hack algorithm you come up with and send it via another email account to the recipient. It's not REALLY secure, but it's a little better than nothing.
    • It would be so much easier for the government to spy on you under the guise of the law

      Yes, of course. You expect that from the government, and luckily we have checks and balances in the government. We have watchdog groups. We have the FOIA. We have none of these covering private businesses; the only way we'd know an ISP was reading mail is if they did something stupid, or a whistleblower speaks out. We have no checks and balances with private businesses.

      I personally have no problem with somebody that t

      • You expect that from the government, and luckily we have checks and balances in the government. We have watchdog groups. We have the FOIA. We have none of these covering private businesses; the only way we'd know an ISP was reading mail is if they did something stupid, or a whistleblower speaks out. We have no checks and balances with private businesses.

        You really haven't been paying attention to politics lately. Ever heard of the USA PATRIOT Act or the foreign surveillance courts and laws? Puhlease, p

      • Yes, of course. You expect that from the government, and luckily we have checks and balances in the government. We have watchdog groups. We have the FOIA. We have none of these covering private businesses; the only way we'd know an ISP was reading mail is if they did something stupid, or a whistleblower speaks out. We have no checks and balances with private businesses.

        Wait. NONE of that is true. We have all of those things covering private businesses; we also have one other critical thing: with a private
        • Wait. NONE of that is true. We have all of those things covering private businesses;

          No, we do not. As an investor to a company, you don't have any rights to see ANY confidential corporate memos. You don't have rights to see much more than released financial statements. And if you do, and you act on that information, you get charged with insider trading.

          If you want high speed digital service, MOST people in the US do not have a choice, it's the cable company or no one. In cities, you have a choice, but
          • No, we do not. As an investor to a company, you don't have any rights to see ANY confidential corporate memos.

            Whoops, I missed one thing -- we don't have FOAI. That's the ONE safeguard you mentioned that we can't get from corporations that, in theory, we can get from our government.

            Unfortunately, there's two problems with this.

            First, the information you'd be asking for is something like "did you ever read any of my emails?" That sort of info is easily hidden, to say the least, and trivial enough that it
    • Imagine if we go the route that many groups want which is to have local and state governments provide their own taxpayer-subsidized WiFi internet access, as is being talked about for Houston.

      I look a my typical phone bill, and I see all sorts of taxes, levies, and surcharges. I'd say that the telephone infrastructure is indeed subsidized a good deal by us tax-paying folks already. That doesn't even include the subsidies that aren't so overt, like those many businesses get, the quasi-monopoly status of t

  • Notice it was DOJ asking for reconsideration? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jordandeamattson ( 261036 ) <jordandm&gmail,com> on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @12:45PM (#10452435) Homepage
    All -

    With the tinfoil hat paranoia running at all time highs, it is interesting to note it was the DOJ, not the EFF or ACLU, that asked the full Appeals Court to reconsider this decision.

    I guess that the nasty, civil rights stomping Ashcroft DOJ feels that wiretap laws apply in this situation. Curious.

    Yours,

    jordan
  • I think we're going through a time when others are using loopholes in the law to get their way...

    For example, the Patriot Act. The govt gets to do all kinds of crazy shit knowing that they'll have a year or two to do whatever they want until it's passed through courts and is ruled unconstitutional.

    Knowing that it will eventually float back through the courts and be ruled out, this little time frame gives them enough time to do anything they please without repurcussions.

    Instead of having this take time, i

  • spammer approved (Score:2, Insightful)

    by slashpot ( 11017 )
    I'm a sys admin for an ISP for the last eight years. Do I read customers' email? Yes. Every single email that comes into our servers is "read". Not personally - but by scripts and filters.

    The real effect (if this is passed) would be that some spammer gets a bounce message from a spam filter, sues a major ISP for "reading his email" and wins, and then ISPs drop spam filtering to keep from getting sued for privacy violations.

    • The wiretap laws make it illegal for a human to listen in. Your spam filter argument is just a straw man. If it were illegal for a machine to "read" the email, it wouldn't even be possible for the email to be received in the first place!

  • GMail ads? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by theguru ( 70699 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @01:01PM (#10452612)
    Would the affect Google's ability to scan GMail messages in order to place context ads?
  • Do you use pgp? me neither..

    Not because i am an idiot like others .. because others are idiots.

    No, seriously, using pgp would put a point on all that crap, it is just the ignorance of the masses that prevent me and others to start using it....

    Of course do not pgp everything, but stuff you care about should be protected.

    And tell you what, I was admin at ISPs with thousand accounts, and while I never read mail I know it was common to search info in mails (not private stuff, but some people figured, it
  • ...I would not be using email in the first place.
  • If your ISP can't read users' incoming email, it can't know what is and is not SPAM.

    If your ISP can't read users' outgoing email, it can't know who is and who is not a SPAMMER.

    The question isn't the act; it is the intent.

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