DOJ Seeking Yahoo Email Without Warrant

Post by **Richard S.** » Fri. Apr. 16, 2010 6:35 am

Looks like they are circumventing privacy you would expect such as email stored on your local computer that would require warrant becasue it's stored on Yahoo's servers.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20002423-38.html

For its part, the Justice Department has taken a legalistic approach: a 17-page brief it filed last month acknowledges that federal law requires search warrants for messages in "electronic storage" that are less than 181 days old. But, Assistant U.S. Attorney Pegeen Rhyne writes in a government brief, the Yahoo Mail messages don't meet that definition.

"Previously opened e-mail is not in 'electronic storage,'" Rhyne wrote in a motion filed last month. "This court should therefore require Yahoo to comply with the order and produce the specified communications in the targeted accounts." (The Justice Department's position is that what's known as a 2703(d) order--not as privacy-protective as the rules for search warrants--should let police read e-mail.)

On December 3, 2009, U.S. Magistrate Judge Craig Shaffer ordered Yahoo to hand to prosecutors certain records including the contents of e-mail messages. Yahoo divulged some of the data but refused to turn over e-mail that had been previously viewed, accessed, or downloaded and was less than 181 days old.

samhill · Post by **samhill** » Fri. Apr. 16, 2010 6:55 am

Don`t know what they are looking for but at least its going through the court system, the 4th amendment had a lot of holes shot in it with the Patriot Act.

Yanche · Post by **Yanche** » Fri. Apr. 16, 2010 10:38 am

If you are too stupid to write in an e-mail what you don't want others to know, shame on you. If you need to communicate truly privately with someone, then just encrypt it. Encryption software is widely available, even free versions. Properly used the encrypted message cannot be broken in a humans lifetime, not even by NSA.

But don't get too secure even when using encryption. Good investigative techniques can still use message traffic analysis to make connections between individuals.

BigBarney · Post by **BigBarney** » Wed. May. 05, 2010 10:14 pm

Try hushmail.com they have free accounts and also business accounts,

and domain coverage.

BigBarney

Post by **Richard S.** » Wed. May. 05, 2010 11:52 pm

BigBarney wrote:Try hushmail.com

They use public/private key encryption which is available on any email client, where it breaks down is you need the recipients public key. If they don't have one you can't send them encrypted messages.

The recipient has a public and private key.
The sender obtains the public key which can only be used to encrypt messages.
The recipient can then decrypt with the private key which only they possess.

Once encrypted the message is useless without the private key. Since so few people have keys it's not very practical.