Want My E-Mail? Get a Warrant

InternetNews.com

The federal government can no longer seize and read e-mail without a search warrant, a federal appeals court ruled Monday. Americans, the court said, have the same reasonable expectation of privacy for e-mail as they do telephone calls and snail mail.

The unanimous decision of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a district court ruling that the government cannot use the federal Stored Communications Act (SCA) to secretly obtain stored e-mail without a warrant or prior notice to the e-mail account holder.

"We have little difficulty agreeing with the district court that individuals maintain a reasonable expectation of privacy in e-mails that are stored with, or sent or received through, a commercial Internet service provider," the court ruled. "The content of e-mail is something that the user 'seeks to preserve as private,' and therefore 'may be constitutionally protected.'"

The court added, "It goes without saying that like the telephone earlier in our history, e-mail is an ever-increasing mode of private communication, and protecting shared communications through this medium is as important to Fourth Amendment principles today as protecting telephone conversations has been in the past."

The case arose through a federal fraud investigation of Cincinnati's Steven Warshak, the owner and operator of Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals, which sells herbal remedies. In September, Warshak and five other principles were indicted on 115 counts of fraud, including charging consumers' credit cards without authorization and laundering the money through personal and investment accounts......