Originally published June 30 2004
No privacy for email, says courts: your ISP can read your email with impunity
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
It's a bizarre ruling, and a major blow for personal privacy: a U.S. appeals court has ruled that ISPs can freely open, read and exploit their customers' emails for any purpose whatsoever. Privacy laws don't apply to email, said the courts.
- A U.S. appeals court in Massachusetts has ruled a company that provides e-mail service has the right to copy and read any message sent to its customers.
- The Washington Post said the 2-to-1 decision by a panel of the 1st U.S. Court of Appeals dismayed privacy advocates, who said it kills any notion e-mail enjoys the same protections as telephone conversations or letters.
- The ruling said because e-mail is stored, however briefly, in computers before it is routed to recipients, it is not subject to laws that apply to tapping telephone calls, which are continuously in transit.
- In January 1998 company engineers were told to make copies of all incoming e-mail to its members from Amazon.com Inc., which also sells books.
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