Call it a landmark decision. In an appeal of U.S. vs Warshak in the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, the judges have ruled that the government needs a search warrant before it can covertly seize and search e-mails stored by e-mail service providers.
In the controversial case that could have widespread implications, the court decided that e-mail users have the same reasonable expectation of privacy in their stored e-mail as they do in their phone calls and postal mail.
Appeals Court Speaks
“Given the fundamental similarities between e-mail and traditional forms of communication [like postal mail and telephone calls], it would defy common sense to afford e-mails lesser Fourth Amendment protection …” the court wrote. “It follows that e-mail requires strong protection under the Fourth Amendment; otherwise the Fourth Amendment would prove an ineffective guardian of private communication, an essential purpose it has long been recognized to serve.”
“[T]he police may not storm the post office and intercept a letter, and they are likewise forbidden from using the phone system to make a clandestine recording of a telephone call — unless they get a warrant, that is,” the ruling said. “It only stands to reason that, if government agents compel an ISP to surrender the contents of a subscriber’s e-mails, those agents have thereby conducted a Fourth Amendment search, which necessitates compliance with the warrant requirement.”
One of a Kind
According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the decision is the only federal appellate decision that squarely rules on e-mail privacy. The EFF said the issue is made all the more important by the fact that current federal law — in particular, the Stored Communications Act — allows the government to secretly obtain e-mails without a warrant in many situations.
“We hope that this ruling will spur Congress to update that law as EFF…