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Having gone through the process of accepting a job offer from the CIA (which I later declined due to the 2 year background check and a more fun job in the Bay Area) I can say this is an oversimplification. If you work for the CIA you explicitly agree to allow them to comb through any of your personal accounts at any time.
The most disturbing bit from the article: "Under the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, federal authorities need only a subpoena approved by a federal prosecutor - not a judge - to obtain electronic messages that are six months old or older."
It's only disturbing because people think of e-mail as equivalent to the letters in their desk rather than what it is: putting private information into the hands of private third parties in cleartext. The ECPA actually gives you an extra layer of protection--requiring a warrant for messages less than six months old. Under the principles of the 4th amendment, you wouldn't even have this much protection. In general, yo…
Petraeus signed all kinds of paperwork that said it was okay for the government to go digging around in his personal life, including email. This is really a non-story.
Sounds like you missed the point of the article: Under the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, federal authorities need only a subpoena approved by a federal prosecutor - not a judge - to obtain electronic messages that are six months old or older. Has nothing to do with what Patraeus signed.
The most disturbing bit from the article: "Under the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, federal authorities need only a subpoena approved by a federal prosecutor - not a judge - to obtain electronic messages that are six months old or older."
It's only disturbing because people think of e-mail as equivalent to the letters in their desk rather than what it is: putting private information into the hands of private third parties in cleartext. The ECPA actually gives you an extra layer of protection--requiring a warrant for messages less than six months old. Under the principles of the 4th amendment, you wouldn't even have this much protection. In general, yo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's only disturbing because people think of e-mail as equivalent to the letters in their desk rather than what it is: putting private information into the hands of private third parties in cleartext. The ECPA actually gives you an extra layer of protection--requiring a warrant for messages less than six months old. Under the principles of the 4th amendment, you wouldn't even have this much protection. In general, yo…
That is a controversial opinion, infortunately held by many in government (people whose unreasonable claims are the very matter the Constitution is designed to protect against) and repeating it is tantamount to propaganda, as it pushes people to change their expectations of privacy, which would then be abused by the Executive branch of government. Please stop paraphrasing abuses as though they are acceptable.
The Constitution doesn't always protect everything we think should be protected. The language of the 4th amendment clearly refers to the privacy rights of a person in his person and his personality. Extrapolating from there to documents he sends in cleartext through potentially numerous intermediaries is quite a stretch. Despite the fiction, e-mail isn't, at the protocol level, appreciably more private than leaving little notes to people tucked under park benches.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is a controversial opinion, infortunately held by many in government (people whose unreasonable claims are the very matter the Constitution is designed to protect against) and repeating it is tantamount to propaganda, as it pushes people to change their expectations of privacy, which would then be abused by the Executive branch of government. Please stop paraphrasing abuses as though they are acceptable.
It's not really a controversial opinion, it's a fairly straightforward application of 4th amendment principles. There is nothing propagandist or unreasonable about pointing out that the 4th amendment has never protected information freely handed over to private third parties. The Constitution doesn't always protect everything we think should be protected. The language of the 4th amendment clearly refers to the privac…
I certainly don't expect my mail carrier to hold my envelopes up to a lightbulb to decode the contents of my letters. Nor do I expect Delta to copy and distribute the documents in my briefcase when I put it in the cargo hold.
The fourth amendment protects my papers and effects, not only when they are on my person.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would that stop you from being required to comply with a subpoena to supply old email from sageraven.com (hypothetical)?
I imagine that it's easier to fight a subpoena directed at you than it is to fight one directed at Google (for example).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As they looked further, the FBI agents came across a private Gmail account that used an alias name. On further investigation, the account turned out to be Petraeus's. The FBI broke into the gmail account (or at least subpoenaed identifying information from google) before they knew whose it was. So no, it's not a non-story.
Does Google actually require subpoenas?
Thing is...do I really think that in using Google they won't read my mail?
As an FBI agent he had full email access, as easy as could be.
Gmail has a backdoor and it's what countries like China use for an attack point.