By Noel Brinkerhoff
If the government wants to see your emails stored by an Internet service provider, they first will have to get a warrant. The government used to skip getting a warrant, based on a 1986 law, the Stored Communications Act, granting such power. But a ruling on December 14 by a federal appeals court has nullified the 1986 statute and federal attorneys now will have to seek out a judge and demonstrate probable cause before obtaining a warrant for email searches.
“The government may not compel a commercial ISP to turn over the contents of a subscriber’s e-mails without first obtaining a warrant based on probable cause,” wrote the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case U.S. v. Warshak.