Nauseating
The Electronic Communication Privacy Act (ECPA) — the main law governing e-mail privacy — was enacted in 1986, when no one had any idea how important e-mail would become or how it would be used. The ECPA requires the government to obtain a search warrant to read e-mail — just like regular e-mail (I assume he meant mail) — but the FBI’s position is that it does not need a warrant once you have opened your e-mail. That means in much of the country — some federal courts have said no — all the FBI needs to do to read your e-mail, essentially, is to ask Google or Yahoo nicely (and issue an easy-to-do subpoena).
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