One Court Decision Upholding An Expectation of Privacy in E-mails
In researching for my crim pro paper, I ran across this recently decided case: U.S. v. Long, 64 M.J. 57 (U.S. Armed Forces 2006). Most courts to date hold that there is no expectation of privacy in one’s e-mails. The legal reasoning behind this is generally based upon the facts that once you send an e-mail it bounces along a chain of servers on a public Internet, and that once the recipient receives the e-mail it is easily forwarded to the general public.
Long veers strongly from these precedents. Lance Corporal Long used her military e-mail system to communicate with friends regarding her drug use. Long, 64 M.J. at 59. The Government then brought these e-mails to evidence for charges of unlawful drug use. Id.
The Long court agreed with the lower court decision that the e-mail evidence should be suppressed since Long “had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the e-mails sent and received on her government computer.” Long, 64 M.J. at 60.
Furthermore, even though there was a log-on banner to the e-mail system, explaining that e-mail use was monitored, users do not consent to monitoring of their e-mail for law enforcement purposes. Long, 64 M.J. at 65. The court interpreted precisely the language of the log-on banner, noting that the monitoring consented only be for “limited purposes”–and that no user would expect “no privacy” from the language of the banner. Id.
OK. I’m tired now. Back to Federal Income Tax for me…
November 7, 2006 5:12 pm 1 Comment
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By family income, May 3, 2009 @ 11:33 pm
There is obviously a lot to know about this. I think you made some good points in Features also.