New Senate Bill gives warrantless e-mail searches to 22 agencies

CNET article

The new Senate bill Patrick Leahy is pushing lets 22 federal agencies read your e-mails without a warrant. It has upsides and downsides. People at these agencies will now get constant personal calls from people working at other agencies asking them to check e-mail accounts "as a favor", making them feel loved. I also picked up the implication that campus cops would be able to check university accounts, and they'll end up spending so much time monitoring co-ed sex messages that they won't harrass people at campus bars nearly as often.

Anyone see any downsides?

 

Re: New Senate Bill give warrentless e-mail searches to 22 agencies

Oh, and if a mod could correct "warrentless" in the thread title, it would be appreciated by all!

 

Your thread title is fixed.

The scenario you describe is a bit wonky, in any case. They aren't going to make thousands of frivolous requests because the company actually hosting the email accounts has to comply with them and turn over the information. They're going to complain if they're getting bombarded with these requests.

Not to say it won't be abused at all--I'm sure it will be, as all such powers are--but this nightmare scenario of virtually everyone's emails being read for fun by federal agents is hyperbolic, to say the least.

University students do their sexy talk over phones, Skype, and Facebook, by the way, not university email accounts.

 

Hrm... Makes me wonder if some lobbyist for law-enforcement sent CNET the bill they were pushing, or perhaps someone opposed to that version leaked it to make sure it died.

 

^^^ Possible. Either way, it died, and that's what counts.

 

Well, we'd all better keep an eye on the committee's doings. When it comes to a gaggle of 60 and 70 year-old self-important lawyers making decisions about the Intertubewebs, vigilance is always warranted.

 

This latest incarnation was done sloppily. That's why it incurred so much wrath and attention from the unwashed masses. The next time it comes around - if it comes around - it will likely be better obfuscated and wrapped in a cloak of crunchy patriotic goodness.

 

Well, I don't know that the Founders would have had an answer for this. They would have thought high electronics witchcraft--and the idea about warrants and what not was to slow rash actions down.
In the era of cybersecurity and terrorism, you need things to speed up. To me warrant means this is what you need to actually confront and kick someones door down.

Otherwise, you need how many judges scanning 3 million e-mails with the word "bom" in them and each needs a judge to sign off on it? Now if that's your line...fine. But be willing to take the hit. And if a strike happns, who gets the blame? Well we say terrorists...unless its Benghazi and folks want heads to roll over inaction that limiting cybersecurity efforts will worsen.

 

What?

 

That's why the founders had the alien and sedition acts. They knew aliens were infiltrating the country so they used the Masons to create an underground network to subvert their world conquering plans which are being sped up by modern technology. The Bengazi business shows how far they've come by having an Illumnatus stooge in the White House.

 

Hmmm...I must have missed that meeting.

 

Well, it's bad enough that Clinton signed a secret executive order giving Santa the authority to hack into everyone's e-mail accounts to see who was naughty and nice.

 

That turned out a cock up.

 

So Reagan should have been impeached over the far worse Beirut barracks bombing, right?

The point is that we don't live in the days of parchment, powdered wigs, and pantaloons anymore. We have 21st century problems. The warrant was a product when lynchings were common. The internet is the street, and plain-clothes cops have always been on streets.

 

Email is more like a letter sent through the postal service than a bulletin posted in a public square. You might have a point if you were talking about, say, a public website, Tweet, or Facebook profile.

 

I don't like th e-mail going outside law-enforcement to a lot of agencies...still, a terror tactic is to not send e-mail at all, just all use the same account.

The Israeli model needs to be adopted:
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/11/21/israels-investments-in-cyber-defense-pay-off/

 

Let's bring back Letters of Marque, that will up the ante on those terrorist supporting states.

 

Pssh, you just want to be a privateer, admit it.