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IRS claims it can read your e-mail without a warrant

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Re: IRS claims it can read your e-mail without a warrant

#121

Post by belorn »

rayiner wrote: post #91
GauntletWizard wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mailbox in the foyer of your building and whatnot are not your property. The lock keeps other tenants from accessing "your stuff" and not your landlord himself.

There are special laws protecting mailboxes. They are actually property of the USPS. A better example is if you left a computer printout in your building's leasing office. That is not protected.

It should be mentioned that those laws are being eroded. The sanctiness of the post is no longer as safe as it used to be.

Re: IRS claims it can read your e-mail without a warrant

#122

Post by Genmutant »

kyrias wrote: post #77
brigade wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's stupid. That's equivalent to claiming telephone calls aren't private, because they're transmitted in the clear by third party exchanges accessible to authorized users. (email servers generally aren't publicly accessible, rather they're only accessible to authorized (registered) users)

email servers generally aren't publicly accessible, rather they're only accessible to authorized (registered) users Yes, sending email requires authorization to the SMTP server but MTA to MTA communications (as in when your mailserver actually sends your email to the recipients mail server) are clear text and can easily be intercepted. The difference between telephone calls and email is that you generally don't have…

But many modern telephone calls are not really on the old telephone line, but get converted to VOIP calls somewhere along the line.

Re: IRS claims it can read your e-mail without a warrant

#123

Post by Terretta »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #102
sliverstorm wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are talking about a transmission protocol, not a storage protocol. For storage, privacy and identity overlap. For transmission they do not.

So the true comparison might be standing naked on your walkway to your front door from the curbside, and saying people don't have a right to take your picture. It's prviate property that's publicly viewable. When expressed this way, then it's actually pretty easy to see how it extends to the real world (you have no expectation of privacy in the publicly viewable space).

No, think private car with tinted windows and a privacy partition shuttling you from home to the office. You'd be annoyed if your changing clothes in the back seat showed up on YouTube, because while your transport was along public routes, it was encapsulated in an expectation of privacy afforded you by your private car provider.

Re: IRS claims it can read your e-mail without a warrant

#124

Post by rayiner »

logn wrote: post #112
rayiner wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not irrelevant. The 4th amendment is enforced primarily by the exclusionary rule. The fact that Carnivore, Echelon, etc, can get to your e-mail anyway doesn't mean that the government can introduce it as evidence in court. To the extent that the 4th amendment doesn't extend to the stuff you store on Google's, Facebook's, etc, servers, the government can introduce that as evidence against you.

But it does mean they could use your email contents to decide to audit you, then in the course of the audit find information which is permissible in court. I'd be shocked if given the revelation in this article, the IRS doesn't browse the email of some people before auditing them.

What do you mean 'browse the mail'? The IRS has to get your e-mail provider to hand over your mail.

Re: IRS claims it can read your e-mail without a warrant

#125

Post by rayiner »

superuser2 wrote: post #108
sliverstorm wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are talking about a transmission protocol, not a storage protocol. For storage, privacy and identity overlap. For transmission they do not.

So you don't mind if I wiretap all your phones? Email being transmitted by 3rd parties is not different from voice calls being transmitted by 3rd parties. Yes, you are trusting a provider, with the expectation that your provider will send the data where you've asked it to send the data, and nowhere else . This is still true whether you're talking postal service, landline voice calls, SMS, cellular voice calls, Skype,…

The protections for phone calls arose back when phone lines were dumb analog wires between telephones. E-mail has never been like that, and it's always involved storing communications on a third party's systems.

Re: IRS claims it can read your e-mail without a warrant

#126

Post by mikeocool »

This article would be much more concerning if it was titled 'Google claims the IRS can read your email without a warrant.' The IRS can think whatever it pleases about accessing your email, however it still needs your provider to cooperate and turn over your email without a warrant.

Google's stance on this particular issue is actually quite the opposite of the IRS's: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/01/google-says-get-a-w...

Re: IRS claims it can read your e-mail without a warrant

#127

Post by rayiner »

coldtea wrote: post #94
betterunix wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that the mail server gets to see the body of the email, which is not even remotely private. Encryption gives you privacy; instead of politely asking people to not read your mail, why not politely ask people to encrypt messages?

> Except that the mail server gets to see the body of the email, which is not even remotely private. Privacy should not (and in more enlightened countries and legal systems it does not) mean "others are not technically able to see it". It should mean: "this piece of information should not be attempted to be seen by others without the owners implicit or explicit permission". (And then legal formulas could be used to d…

> Privacy should not (and in more enlightened countries and legal systems it does not) mean "others are not technically able to see it".

This is really at the heart of the disagreement in this thread. Maybe this is what you think it should mean. But that's not what it means Constitutionally. The Constitution doesn't talk about privacy, it talks about unreasonable search and seizure. And the precedent is that if you've voluntarily handed the information to someone else, its not unreasonable for the government to get that information from them.

Re: IRS claims it can read your e-mail without a warrant

#128

Post by rayiner »

superuser2 wrote: post #118
rayiner wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your analogy is completely inapt: 1) A rental car, like a rented house, is still under your control. But your e-mail account on Google's servers is under their control. They can do whatever they want with it. It's more like your friend letting you use part of his garage to store stuff--a third party still retains full control over the space. 2) As far as I can tell, Google can access your e-mail whenever it wants, so…

Because I know and expect that Google will use my emails to display targeted ads. And I also know that, under this process, my data remains in the custody of Google. I still fully expect Google not to send my data outside its servers, except to my recipient.

The 4th amendment does not restrain the government from looking at any information you don't want them to look at. It restraints them from personally harassing you to get information without a warrant. Once the information is out of your hands, you can imagine laws that will protect that information so it is used only according to your expectations, but the 4th amendment isn't the mechanism for that.

Re: IRS claims it can read your e-mail without a warrant

#129

Post by superuser2 »

superuser2 wrote: post #108
sliverstorm wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are talking about a transmission protocol, not a storage protocol. For storage, privacy and identity overlap. For transmission they do not.

So you don't mind if I wiretap all your phones? Email being transmitted by 3rd parties is not different from voice calls being transmitted by 3rd parties. Yes, you are trusting a provider, with the expectation that your provider will send the data where you've asked it to send the data, and nowhere else . This is still true whether you're talking postal service, landline voice calls, SMS, cellular voice calls, Skype,…

So you're saying phone calls are only private because of a misguided adherence to tradition?

Re: IRS claims it can read your e-mail without a warrant

#130

Post by magicalist »

rayiner wrote: post #3

This statement: "Newly disclosed documents prepared by IRS lawyers says that Americans enjoy 'generally no privacy' in their e-mail, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and similar online communications" is entirely consistent with the existence of Warshack. Warshack covers the Sixth Circuit, which includes the following states: Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee. The IRS is bound by this precedent in those…

That's a fine opinion, but it's no more than that, and fortunately the 6th Circuit disagrees with you, ruling that the ECPA's 180-day expiration date for an expectation of privacy is unconstitutional:

> "Given the fundamental similarities between email and traditional forms of communication, it would defy common sense to afford emails lesser Fourth Amendment protection.... It follows that email requires strong protection under the Fourth Amendment; otherwise, the Fourth Amendment would prove an ineffective guardian of private communication, an essential purpose it has long been recognized to serve."[1]

And of course their opinion carries quite a bit more weight, to the point that both Google and Microsoft, at least, put their disagreement with the IRS in writing, requiring a warrant before disclosing the content of emails, regardless of the age of those emails.

ctrl-f "warrant" in both of these for more details, but here are some snippets. From Google:

> "On the face of it, ECPA seems to allow a government agency to compel a communications provider to disclose the content of certain types of emails and other content with a subpoena or an ECPA court order (described below). But Google requires an ECPA search warrant for contents of Gmail and other services based on the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable search and seizure....

> The threshold is higher still for an ECPA search warrant. To obtain one, a government agency must make a request to a judge or magistrate and meet a relatively high burden of proof: demonstrating "probable cause" to believe that contraband or certain information related to a crime is presently in the specific place to be searched. A warrant must specify the place to be searched and the things being sought. It can be used to compel the disclosure of the same information as an ECPA subpoena or court order—but also a user's search query information and private content stored in a Google Account, such as Gmail messages, documents, photos and YouTube videos. An ECPA search warrant is available only in criminal investigations."[2]

And from Microsoft:

> "Does Microsoft reject subpoenas from law enforcement seeking content data?

> Yes. We require an order or warrant before we will consider releasing content. Like other companies, we implemented the holding of U.S. v. Warshak, which held a provision of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to be unconstitutional."[3]

[1] https://www.eff.org/files/warshak_opinion_121410.pdf

[2] http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/le...

[3] http://www.microsoft.com/about/corporatecitizenship/en-us/re...

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