Congress, at Last Minute, Drops Requirement to Obtain Warrant to Monitor Email

Re:Congress, at Last Minute, Drops Requirement to Obtain War... by rayiner on Tuesday December 25, 2012 @03:52PM (#4967079)

So the rights with respect to your mailbox derive from the fact that the Post Office was historically an appendage of the government. Giving your personal information to a government-run Post Office versus giving it to a third party like Google (that mines your personal information for advertisements!) is a salient distinction.

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Re:Congress, at Last Minute, Drops Requirement to Obtain War... by stephengillie on Tuesday December 25, 2012 @05:29PM (#4967295)

My question still is: why can't a judge subpoena all mail you have within the Post Office's sorting system?

Don't say it's due to prohibitive expense unless you can prove this would be more expensive than Carpathia hosting Megaupload for free.

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Re:Congress, at Last Minute, Drops Requirement to Obtain War... by rayiner on Tuesday December 25, 2012 @06:06PM (#4967388)

I think you drew the opposite inference from what I intended. Postal mail is more protected because the Post Office is (was) an organ of the government. As an organ of the government, it is restricted by the 4th amendment as to what it can do with your mail.

E-mail is different because the intermediaries are non-governmental third parties. The idea is that you do not give up your expectation of privacy by giving mail to the Post Office to deliver, because you know the Post Office is limited by the 4th amendment, while you do give up your expectation of privacy by giving mail to your e-mail provider, because you know your e-mail provider has no obligation to protect your privacy.

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