'E-Mail Wiretapping' Prosecutions Could Increase in the Future
Gene J. Koprowski writes in eWeek:
A federal appeals court ruling in Boston last week on e-mail wiretapping is reverberating throughout the Internet community—and legal world—with a consensus emerging that there may be prosecutions in the future for what today is considered normal business practice by ISPs.
The First Circuit Court of Appeals, voting 5-2, ruled that an e-mail service provider that supposedly read e-mail, intended for customers only, could indeed be tried on federal criminal charges.
This overruled a 2-1 vote last summer by a three judge panel in the same matter.
In a majority opinion written by Judge Kermit Lipez, a Clinton appointee, of the First Circuit, the court said the prosecution under the federal Wiretap Act could proceed, because the "statute contains no explicit indication that Congress intended to exclude communications in transient storage from the definition."
posted by Fergie @ 8/20/2005 08:31:00 AM
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