Do email messages deserve the same privacy protection as telephone calls?
Civil liberty groups will get a second chance to make their case that yes, they do before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
On Wednesday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the ACLU of Ohio, and the Center for Democracy and Technology filed an amicus brief in Warshak v. USA in support of appellant Steven Warshak.
Warshak argues that a court order secretly directing his ISP to preserve his e-mail violates federal privacy laws and his expectation of privacy.
(...)In November 2006, the EFF, the ACLU of Ohio, and the CDT filed a similar amicus brief in support of Warshak, arguing that e-mail deserves the same legal protection as telephone calls. In June 2007, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Warshak's favor. But that decision was vacated on procedural grounds. And now the case is back before the court.
In a statement, EFF senior staff attorney Kevin Bankston says that the Justice Department conducted what amounts to a "back-door wiretap" when it intercepted six months of Warshak's e-mail without a warrant. "Thankfully, this abuse has given the appeals court yet another opportunity to clarify that the Fourth Amendment protects the privacy of e-mail against secret government snooping, even when it's in the hands of an e-mail provider," he said.
Stay tuned.
