Saturday, April 18, 2015

Government snooping through your emails without a warrant: Not just the NSA

The SEC and IRS, among other government agencies, love, love, love administrative subpoenas to snoop through emails without probable cause. Techdirt writes:
The story that we keep hearing is that two government agencies in particular really like ECPA's outdated system: the IRS and the SEC. Since both only have administrative subpoena power, and not the ability to issue warrants like law enforcement, the lower standards of ECPA make it much easier for them to snoop through your emails without having to show probable cause. Last year, in a Congressional hearing, the SEC's boss, Mary Jo White, was questioned about this by Congressman Kevin Yoder, who has been leading the charge on ECPA reform. As we reported at the time, in the conversation, White clearly said that the SEC needed this ability or it would lose "critical" information in its investigations.
The practice is very widespread. For example, see below that the Georgia Department of Labor has placed an ad for a subpoena specialist.  Feel safe though:  Candidates must have a high school diploma.

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