"E-Mail Not Protected by 4th Amendment, Judge Says"

Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi: "Update: Orin Kerr says he misread the opinion. Read his correction here.

The Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures does not apply to e-mail, a federal judge has ruled. The judge's reasoning would seem to sound a warning bell for anyone -- lawyers in particular -- not only who use Web-based e-mail accounts, but also who store documents of any kind online in "the cloud."

Orin Kerr, professor at George Washington University Law School, highlights the ruling and quotes from it at The Volokh Conspiracy, even though he says he disagrees with it.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman in Oregon addresses the question of whether the government must notify someone when it obtains a search warrant to access the person's Web-based e-mail account. This case appears to have involved Google's Gmail.

The Fourth Amendment, Mosman writes, creates a "strong privacy protection for homes and the items within them in the physical world." But e-mail, he says, resides outside a person's home..."

Full text and active links are available at the source site listed below.

Source: Legal Blog Watch, 29 October 2009