Documents came to light following an ACLU Freedom of Information Act request. According to the documents, FBI agents can use a loophole in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) to read private emails without a warrant.
"If the contents of an unopened message are kept beyond six months or stored on behalf of the customer after the e-mail has been received or opened, it should be treated the same as a business record in the hands of a third party, such as an accountant or attorney," read an FBI handbook uncovered by the ACLU.
"In that case, the government may subpoena the records from the third party without running afoul of either the Fourth or Fifth Amendment."
The ACLU reports that officials within the FBI use a loophole in the ECPA to circumvent the use of a warrant. The loophole allows government agencies to snoop through private emails that are older than 180 days.
"These records show that federal policy around access to the contents of our electronic communications is in a state of chaos," said ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project staff attorney Nathan Freed Wessler in a blog post.
"The FBI, the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, and Department of Justice (DOJ) Criminal Division should clarify whether they believe warrants are required across the board when accessing people's email."
The loophole was also discovered to be used by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) last month. ACLU staffers uncovered that the IRS was snooping through personal emails without a warrant following another Freedom of Information Act request.
IRS officials have denied any wrong doing. They said in a recent statement that the IRS does not use email to target taxpayers.
The ECPA, the legislation that features the loophole, has recently been called on to be amended. Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC) recently earmarked an updated version of the bill for a Senate vote.
No comments:
Post a Comment