Imagine police rifling through your desk, then boxing up and carting off any mail or correspondence that was older than six months.
Ridiculous; they'd have to have a warrant. But the same Fourth Amendment protection you enjoy at home has yet to be extended to the emails and other electronic communications that you've sent or received and are stored on servers by Internet service… Read more »
U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene, a former Microsoft vice president, scored a House Judiciary Committee seat, eagerly looking forward to working on intellectual property and privacy legislation.
Alas, Democrat DelBene's duties have included challenging some of Congress' most extreme right-wing ideologues.
She was made a member of the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives,… Read more »
AMERICA’S Founding Fathers would be surprised to see who has emerged to defend the Constitution from the post 9/11 thrashing it’s received in Washington, D.C.
As the nation’s press corps shrinks, Congress waffles and the U.S. Supreme Court slogs on with an unfilled seat, technology companies are stepping forward to protect citizens’ basic rights from overreaching… Read more »
Hikers coming into the U.S. from Canada should be able to enjoy spectacular northern reaches of the Pacific Crest Trail and not face fine or arrest, 20 members of Congress have written to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
"Unfortunately, hikers seeking to traverse the PCT from its northern most point on the Canadian side of the border are unable to legally do so because… Read more »
Last year, the FBI flew a fleet of drones (a.k.a “unmanned aerial vehicles”) over Seattle and other cities. They were equipped with cameras capable of snapping thousands of high-resolution photographs, and may have carried devices that could capture emails, phone calls, texts and location data. One focus of the agency’s surveillance was the protests over the Ferguson,… Read more »
Almost everyone retains old e-mails, some with important and sensitive information. And yet we'd bet few people realize that if e-mails date back more than six months and are stored on a third-party server, the government doesn't need a warrant to look at them.
"At this moment, law enforcement can access American citizens' emails without a warrant, even though the exact… Read more »
As I talk to people throughout our region, all of them agree our immigration system is broken.
There are approximately 110,000 immigrants in the 1st District and only half are naturalized citizens, meaning nearly 60,000 face the prospect of deportation. In an attempt to correct this crisis, President Obama took reasonable steps within the office’s well-established authority to… Read more »
In 1986 the Internet was just an experimental form of communication between a handful of academics, and yet more than 30 years later, Americans’ online email privacy laws remain stuck in the pre-internet era. At this moment, law enforcement can access American citizens’ emails without a warrant, even though the exact same messages in paper form would require a… Read more »
A key House panel voted Wednesday to pass an email privacy bill that would stop the government from being able to read Americans' old emails without a warrant.
The House Judiciary Committee voted 28-0 to approve the Email Privacy Act, a bipartisan bill that would replace a 1986 law that allows government investigators to peruse emails at will if the… Read more »
Supporters of email privacy legislation will not rely solely on stand-alone legislation to get their measure passed by year's end.
If the bill fails to get through both chambers during a tight election-year schedule, the sponsors will press to attach it as a rider to either spending or authorization bills.
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