What Congress' New Email-privacy Bill Means For Your Inbox 90
erier2003 writes: The Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act has a simple and vital purpose: making it harder for the government to get your email, instant messages, and Facebook chats. It amends a decades-old law to require government agencies to get a warrant to access the contents of any email or other electronic record—no matter how old those communications are. Sen. Mike Lee, one of the bill's cosponsors, told the Daily Dot why it matters. "The bill adds a warrant requirement for communications that were previously considered so old as to be irrelevant to their participants and unworthy of privacy protections. Right now, emails and other electronic messages older than 180 days are considered to have been “abandoned” by the people who sent and received them. Law-enforcement agencies don't need to get a warrant to force a company like Google or Facebook to turn over those communications." The act also requires the government to notify people whose records it has acquired, though they can delay that notice for 90 or 180 days if they feel sending it will put somebody at risk.
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IOW: This is bullshit.
It's just to make us feel good as they snoop confidently about.
Re:It means nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's bullshit that anything over a certain age was considered 'abandoned' when other laws actually mandate the retention of old communications as legal records. At least this starts to make a difference.
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Nevermind the gov't position that it is legal to capture and electronically process anything on the internet without a warrant. They ONLY need a rubber-stamp warrant when an employee actually views the data. Unless it's an emergency.
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What it if actually starts the ball-rolling, so that maybe more legislation later can further actually accomplish something?
Won't happen. Congress won't pass anything because terrorists.
Re:It means nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
They already capture and store data that should have a warrant, without one. This will just add another law that will be ignored. What is needed to start the ball rolling is people being prosecuted for breaking the existing laws.
Re:It means nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't let-up the pressure but give it time to happen. This kind of thing takes years or decades to resolve, not weeks or months.
Secret (Score:2)
So... more secret laws, secret trials, secret jails?
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I love the world we live in. You can say the exact same thing I did [slashdot.org], and we get modded in opposite directions. Is it because people hate me? I wouldn't know
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I didn't quite say what you said, what i said is you can legislate (especially against government agencies), but if you are not going to enforce it, what is the point of even more legislature that you are not going to enforce. What I understood you said is you can't legislate at all.
Then again I don't know why you where modded down, it wasn't rude or said just to get a negative reaction. And don't assume people hate you, I definitely don't, I don't even know you. Modding is a little bit random. When things
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What I understood you said is you can't legislate at all.
I'm sorry if my figurative speech that it's 'impossible' to legislate led to any confusion. Yes, you can write all the laws you want on this, and they will be circumvented quite easily with corrupt judges who rubber stamp warrants, as they are now. None if this will stop them from dragging you through the system should the desire arise. They can lock you up for years and then drop the charges before it comes up before the judge in public court. Until
A step in the right direction. Thanks Sen. Lee (Score:3)
This is certainly a step in the right direction. Thank you Senator Mike Lee, R-UT.
a morman? Is that like a mermaid? (Score:2)
Is a mor-man the male analogue to a mer-maid? English, mother fucker, do you speak it?
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IOW: This is bullshit.
It's just to make us feel good as they snoop confidently about.
Nothing we can do about that anyway, nor are you going to be able to prove otherwise. Secret programs will continue in secret.
That said, the instant they want to bring their illegally collected evidence into a courtroom, that is when these new laws should tell them to legally fuck off, and provide judges the ability to dismiss the case, as it should be.
Re:It means nothing (Score:5, Funny)
I'm just going to start using Hilary Clinton's mail server. The US government doesn't seem to be able to get access to that. Or, by the time they do, the emails have already been deleted.
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NSA has copies...
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Agreed. What good is enhancing a law that was never enforced, has already been completely ignored by the NSA and two Presidents since 9/11, and has no real penalty even if someone was interested in enforcing it?
Rand Paul is not a co-sponsor. (Score:2)
It is a pacifier. There is no milk.
I agree.
First I note that Rand Paul is not on board as a co-sponsor. On any alleged civil-liberties-promoting Senate bill that's a big red flag saying "Look for the 'gotchas'".
Even a cursory look at the summary shows that it explicitly does not block "administrative" subpoenas and authorizes delaying or blocking the very notifications it's purported to require. "Get a warrant!" is a big so-what when they have a rubber-stamp court that gives them whatever warrants they wa
it means nothing, (Score:5, Insightful)
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they'll just have all traffic routed offshore where it can be freely trawled through in a 'constitution free' zone, or else get the Brits to intercept it all as it goes via a British controlled territory...
Theres absolutely no need to route the traffic overseas or through British controlled territory.
All that needs to happen is that the data is transmitted, it doesn't even need to be collected by any US agency.
Then the 5 eyes agreement kicks in; US counterintelligence will not stop the British, Canadian, New Zealand nor Australian intelligence agencies intercepting this data in the USA and then feeding that data to US intelligence agencies.
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What's in the fine print? (Score:1)
This sounds too good to be true (for personal rights), so either...
- it won't make it through to legislation
- it is being used simply to bargain with law enforcement agencies
- it will some how have a loop hole that means they can go about their business as they do today
Dead in committee (Score:1)
Dead in committee:
Latest Action: 02/04/2015 Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
How is something we have no control over (Score:2)
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How is something we have no control over in the first place be considered abandoned?
The law was written back when POP (post office protocol) was the standard. Basically it downloaded your messages from the server and then deleted the server copy. If the messages were still there after six months it basically meant you weren't using your email and it was probably a legitimate assumption that they were abandoned. Obviously things have changed.
Not going to pass (Score:2)
Gotta maintain the status quo. And if it does pass, that means they don't need to ask for it to get it.
Riiggghhhhttttt! (Score:3)
"The bill adds a warrant requirement for communications that were previously considered so old as to be irrelevant to their participants and unworthy of privacy protections. Right now, emails and other electronic messages older than 180 days are considered to have been “abandoned” by the people who sent and received them. Law-enforcement agencies don't need to get a warrant to force a company like Google or Facebook to turn over those communications."
Okay, so something a mere 180 days old is "irrelevant" to me and "abandoned" by me but, is of value to the government in my prosecution?!?
Things that make ya go CENSORED.
Why the 4th amendment no longer works (Score:5, Insightful)
Law-enforcement agencies don't need to get a warrant to force a company like Google or Facebook to turn over those communications. Agencies just need to assert in writing that they need the communication to further an active investigation.
If that is the case, it is because Google and Facebook *choose* to turn over those communications. Back when the constitution was written, it was assumed that the accused would refuse to provide information without a warrant. But today, most of our information is held by 3rd-parties who have no reason to withhold our information. So the 4th amendment doesn't work any more.
The ultimate fault here is that when Google holds my email, it should be *my* email not theirs, so they should not have the legal power to give it out without my consent. That is how the post office worked. They are actually not allowed to intercept mail without a warrant: it isn't theirs to give out. We lost that protection. Same without your gas-and-electric bill, your credit card records, and your passwords (don't forget that one if you use a password manager!). Those things are not yours, so the constitutional protections don't apply.
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This is why it's vital to run your own email server. It's not hard -- "apt-get install exim4 sa-exim" will give you a decent state that's working out of the box (you can adjust it further if you know how), requires hardly any maintenance, and can be shared with friends/family who don't know what a "server" is.
If you run your own mail, any secret warrants (or warrantless expeditions!) are out, except for man-in-the-middle attacks (ordinary SSL being no-good because it's trivial to silently disable). And th
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Like Hillary did?
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You don't have to use Google or Facebook. You can still set up your own email server or web server to post your daily activities. You choose to use Google and Facebook for the convenience, and that convenience comes with the lessened personal protections. Those companies have no duty to protect your rights, or more precisely, you have n
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The Post Office (1) delivers mail...So using the Post Office as an analogy...
It wasn't an analogy. It was a literal statement of fact.
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You don't have to use Google or Facebook.
Yes, and think bigger!
To effectively regain my 4th amendment rights as they were when the constitution was written, I would need to avoid the power company, credit card companies, banks, credit monitoring services, Amazon, ebay, hospitals, grocery stores, phone companies, and ISPs. They all could share my information with the government, without a warrant, and without notifying me. We have some specific laws in place for medical records and banking records - but those are the exception, not the rule.
This
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The problem is: Is it YOUR record of YOUR business purchasing from them, or is it THEIR record of THEIR business selling to you? It's both.
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Means nothing: CIA NSA FBI local cops ignore this (Score:1)
It's all in the fine print, and the unconstitutional extra-legal actions of those supposed to defend us from outside threats, who spy on us against our own Constitution, state Constitutions, and federal and state laws which do not permit them to do so, but who will never go to jail for their actions in so doing.
Welcome to serfdom. ... pause ...
Actually, no, serfs had rights.
You don't.
That's a lot of words to say "jack shit" (Score:2)
The article poster used an awful lot of words when "jack shit" would have sufficed.
Name That Party (Score:1)
If Slashdot was a reputable source of news, they'd include the party and district (or state, when appropriate... as a Senator, Lee's district is all of Utah) every time they mention an elected official.
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Why? So you can pass ad hominem judgement based on the team he plays for? Coming from outside the US I've always found the American penchant for naming politicians with a little letter beside their name a bit odd. Particularly when from an outside perspective both main parties are virtually identical in policy terms. I think I'd prefer to judge congress people on their own merit rather than painting them with a broad team brush all the time.
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2. If you live in the person's district, and you like the kind of things they propose, you should remember to vote for them in the next election. (Alternatively, if you dislike the kind of scandals they get in, you should remember not t
Based on history... (Score:5, Insightful)
"What Congress' New Email-privacy Bill Means For Your Inbox"
If the Do-not-call Registry, or the 4th Amendment are any indication, not much.
CAN-SNOOP (Score:2)
They can "Request"? (Score:2)
So they can request notifications be delayed..... nice. So is it a felony for them to improperly request delay? I feel it should be. They are supposed to understand the law they enfoce, they should be held to the strictest standards against it.
One of the worst things we do is allow law enforcement to go around bending and breaking laws, while holding everyone else's balls to the fire.
If they are trying to put others in jeapordy, they should face the same. Every single time, and it should be severe.
Bills are typically doing the opposite. (Score:2)
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Google? (Score:2)
So, if the government needs a warrant to read your emails, what about Google?
180 days? (Score:2)
If things 180 day old were no use, we'd have no slashdot at all ;-)
Laws for the Lawless (Score:1)