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Re:E-Mail Security in the Wake of Petraeus by haberman on Friday November 23, 2012 @11:35AM (#4822721)
What is the difference between a warrant and a court order? Both presumably have judicial oversight, so is it just a difference in the standard required to issue one?

This reminds me of an experience I had several years ago. My sweet grandma fell prey to a scam where someone called her, impersonating me, and said I was in trouble in a foreign country and needed money. She sent some money via Western Union (or a comparable service, I don't remember which one) to my name, and the scammer picked the money up. To do this the scammer needed ID under my name. I called up the company and asked to see a copy of the ID that was used, since I wanted to know if any of my documents had been compromised.

The company said they wouldn't release that information without a subpoena, which seemed reasonable to me (for all they knew, I was an attacker trying to steal someone else's ID). But I couldn't find any way of getting a court order of any kind. It seemed reasonable to me that I should have standing to see what ID was used to impersonate me and steal money from my grandmother, but I couldn't find any options for actually obtaining it.

In this situation, I would have loved a way to obtain a court order for this information.

Re:E-Mail Security in the Wake of Petraeus by Spooky23 on Friday November 23, 2012 @06:11PM (#4823984)
Certain types of requests by law only require an "administrative subpoena" -- Federal agencies basically are given the discretion by Congress to determine when they are necessary.

Typically, they are used to establish facts needed to support a search warrant. For example, the police may subpoena a utility to obtain electricity usage when investigating a marijuana grower. Using that information, they can obtain phone data and eventually get a search warrant to search the physical location.