In 1986 The American Banker defined E-mail as
"a trademark of CompuServe," Computerworld noted that
sending a single message required a 10-minute phone call, and
InfoWorld described "a pilot scheme that will allow users
of one system to send messages to mailbox holders on another." That
was the year Congress enacted the Electronic
Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), so it is hardly surprising
that the once forward-looking law seems antiquated today.
In fact, ECPA is so out of date that it has left us vulnerable to government snooping in ways most Americans do not appreciate. With the Senate Judiciary Committee considering possible fixes this week, now is a good time to reflect on how technological advances and misguided legal reasoning have eroded the Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable searches of our "papers and effects," which nowadays take forms the Framers could not have anticipated.
Read more: http://reason.com/archives/2012/11/28/the-fine-print-in-the-governments-privac
In fact, ECPA is so out of date that it has left us vulnerable to government snooping in ways most Americans do not appreciate. With the Senate Judiciary Committee considering possible fixes this week, now is a good time to reflect on how technological advances and misguided legal reasoning have eroded the Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable searches of our "papers and effects," which nowadays take forms the Framers could not have anticipated.
Read more: http://reason.com/archives/2012/11/28/the-fine-print-in-the-governments-privac
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