Wiretap law ‘eviscerated ‘
p2pnet.net News:- It wasn’t a criminal violation for an email service provider to monitor users’ incoming messages without their consent, the First Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.
However, “It may well be that the protections of the Wiretap Act have been eviscerated as technology advances,” said the court.
The decision in U.S. v Councilman has dealt a “grave blow” to the privacy of Internet communications, states the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation).
The defendant, Bradford Councilman, sells rare and used books and offered email service to customers. He’d configured his mail processing software so that all incoming email sent from Amazon.com, his competitor, was copied and sent to his mailbox, as well as to the intended recipient’s.
“By interpreting the Wiretap Act’s privacy protections very narrowly, this court has effectively given Internet communications providers free rein to invade the privacy of their users for any reason and at any time,” states EFF attorney Kevin Bankston.
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Go here for a .pdf.
June 30th, 2004 at 4:22 pm
Please correct: The first sentence refers to the First Circuit Court of Appeals, and then a quote later claims it was the Ninth Circuit. I assume the quote is correct.
June 30th, 2004 at 6:31 pm
I’ve deleted that reference – it applied to another case (Konop v. Hawaiian Airlines, cited in the decision .pdf). And it was out of context. Thanks for pointing that out.