PAPERS and Effects

APPARENTLY PRESIDENT OBAMA takes something of an originalist view of the constitution and the fourth amendment. Through the arguments of his people in the federal prosecutors office this interpretation becomes clear.

[Emphasis added.] The legal dust-up, unsealed late Tuesday, concerns a 1986 law that already allows the government to obtain a suspect’s e-mail from an ISP or webmail provider without a probable-cause warrant, once it’s been stored for 180 days or more. The government now contends it can get e-mail under 180-days old if that e-mail has been read by the owner, and the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protections don’t apply.

Yahoo is challenging the government’s position and defying a court order to turn over some customer e-mail to the feds. Google, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy & Technology and other groups late Tuesday told the federal judge presiding over the case that accessing e-mail under 180 days old requires a valid warrant under the Fourth Amendment, regardless of whether it has been read. [Wired]

The founding fathers didn’t say anything about electronic mail, suckas! Papers and effects, LOL. Was this interpretation of the fourth amendment the impetus behind all those “paperless society” campaigns?

Download your email and delete it off the server every 179ZERO! days, kids. So much for the convenience of “cloud computing.”