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Politics

Jared Polis on Gov't Snooping Your Old Emails: 'We don't even know the extent to which this power has been used or abused'

Matt Welch | 5.29.2014 2:09 PM

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Did you know that the government can rifle through your opened emails without a warrant if they happen to be at least 180 days old? I had somehow forgotten that unhappy fact until yesterday, when Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) came on The Independents to talk about his Email Privacy Act. Watch below:

A treasure trove of past Reason writing on the issue can be found here.

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Matt Welch is an editor at large at Reason.

PoliticsPolicyCivil LibertiesScience & TechnologyThe IndependentsPrivacyFourth Amendment
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  1. Snark Plissken   12 years ago

    So when is Greenwald going to publish his list?

    1. widget   12 years ago

      I don't know, but he's a journalist, so not on Friday.

      This will be an uneventful day for anyone named John Smith or Ming Wu. I'm gonna need a drink if my name shows up there.

      1. Snark Plissken   12 years ago

        I'll be extremely disappointed if Wary Hugecock isn't on there.

      2. widget   12 years ago

        I have to give credit to blacks on their forethought here. We make up our little screen names here upon entering the Internet as adults in some attempt to be anonymous. Blacks do that as kids on the playground.

      3. Suthenboy   12 years ago

        I will be disappointed if every member of this commentariat is not on there. Geez, what do we have to do?

        1. widget   12 years ago

          Snowden's List

    2. Jordan   12 years ago

      I think he said August.

  2. Pro Libertate   12 years ago

    Well, so we don't know the extent of the crime. How about we start prosecuting people and grabbing evidence? I mean, we know the crimes have occurred.

    Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

    1. croaker   12 years ago

      Why waste time and money on trials? Let's go straight to the executions.

  3. Sudden   12 years ago

    Did you know that the government can rifle through your opened emails without a warrant...

    Does that constitute a trigger warning?

  4. Cytotoxic   12 years ago

    Sort of OT: what's up with TrueCrypt?

    1. SweatingGin   12 years ago

      oh jeez... there's a can of worms.

      My money at the moment is on warrant canary/Lavabit situation.

      On the plus side, the truecrypt audit project shirt should eventually show up!

      1. Christophe   12 years ago

        Yup.

        On the other hand, the core devs for TrueCrypt are apparently anonymous, so how did they get an NSL?

  5. Suthenboy   12 years ago

    "Did you know that the government can rifle through your opened emails without a warrant if they happen to be at least 180 days old?"

    Matt, everything they are telling us is a fucking lie. No matter what the rules are, they are looking at anything and everything at will. Assume everything you write is going to be read by some halfwitted douchebag drawing a government check.

  6. heartburn   12 years ago

    I'll just leave this here.

    https://mykolab.com/privacy

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