Posted
On: March 17, 2010 by Kish &
Lietz
Eleventh Circuit
Holds No Expectation of Privacy in Delivered Email Messages
Last week in Rehberg
v. Paulk, the Eleventh
Circuit held that sending “emails to third parties constitute[s] a
voluntary relinquishment of the right to privacy in that information.” In this
case, the investigators subpoenaed the emails directly from the Internet
Service Provider (ISP) through which Rehberg transmitted his messages. The
Court held that he did not have a valid expectation of privacy in the email information,
so he failed to state a Fourth Amendment violation.
This ruling
might be a dangerous precedent, for several reasons. First, the Court of
Appeals says that none of us has any privacy in our emails the moment we hit
the ‘send’ button. Second, this means that the government can get our otherwise
private messages from every ISP we use to connect us with the outside world.
This ruling represents one more step towards a lack of privacy, and in favor of
the government’s ability to intrude into our lives.
The opinion in Rehberg
v. Paulk is here.
A lengthy analysis by Orin Kerr on why the Eleventh Circuit got this wrong is here at the Volokh Conspiracy.
Posted by Kish & Lietz | Permalink
| Email
This Post
Posted In: Criminal
Justice Issues , Eleventh
Circuit Court of Appeals , Federal
Criminal Law News , Fourth
Amendment