Court Rules the Police Needs A Warrant to Search Your Emails

We can definitely all exhale with a sigh of relief. In this technology age where “privacy” is fast becoming an elusive concept, it is good to see we have privacy gatekeepers. I definitely agree with the ruling by the Sixth Circuit stated below.

“To what extent can the police secretly root through email? It’s a core question about the limits of police surveillance that the Sixth Circuit yesterday tackled in this lengthy opinion.

In short, privacy advocates are pleased as punch with the opinion, which holds that the government must obtain a search warrant based on probable cause before it can search emails stored by Internet Service Providers.

The case involved the fraud prosecution of Steven Warshak, an Ohio executive, whose company sold an herbal supplement  touted for its purported ability to increase a man’s, um, physical attributes.

As part of its fraud investigation, the government obtained about 27,000 private emails from Warshak’s Internet Service Providers.  Warshak moved to exclude the emails as evidence, contending the government obtained them through an unreasonable search and seizure, in violation of the Fourth Amendment. . .”

~More on WSJ.