6-Month-Old E-Mails Easy Pickings for Police
The outdated 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act considers e-mail "abandoned" and searchable if it's stored for more than 180 days on a server. Larry Greenemeier reports
... The 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act was mostly aimed at protecting digital messages in transit. The Act existed before the widespread use of email and of massive computer memory that could easily store decades worth of messages. The law thus considers information that such as e-mail abandoned if its stored for more than 180 days on a service providers server. If law enforcement wants access to an abandoned e-mail, it only has to claim need for an investigation.
A little good news. The Justice Department supports requiring police to get a warrant to read your e-mail. Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy agrees, and is trying to get a law passed to make that official ...
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=six-month-old-emails-easy-pickings-13-06-06
struggle4progress
(118,379 posts)Office of Legal Policy
<before the>
Committee on The Judiciary
Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations
United States House of Representatives
<regarding>
Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA)
<on>
March 19, 2013
... We are pleased to engage with the Subcommittee in discussions about how ECPA is used and how it might be updated and improved ... ECPA was originally enacted in 1986 a time when the internet was still a nascent technology ... We agree, for example, that there is no principled basis to treat email less than 180 days old differently than email more than 180 days old ... Acknowledging that the so-called 180-day rule and other distinctions in the SCA no longer make sense is an important first step ...
http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/113th/03192013_2/Tyrangiel%2003192013.pdf
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)Damn it!
K/R
struggle4progress
(118,379 posts)But I'm surprised this old Reagan-era provision hasn't gotten more attention before now