 When you seal and mail a letter, the fact that you’re sending something via letter is not private – the addresses, the stamp, etc. Those are all visible and meant to be seen. You mailed a sealed letter. Everybody knows it. You can’t walk into FedEx or the Post Office screaming at strangers, “Don’t you dare look at me while I’m mailing this letter!” Ah, but the contents of your sealed letter? Now that’s private. No one is entitled to know what’s inside except for you (and anyone you consent to give permission to, like a recipient). And so it is with electronic storage services like Dropbox. The fact that you have a Dropbox account is not private, but what you store there is. And that’s a big deal, because believe it or not, it hasn’t been entirely clear if electronic communications (including files stored in the cloud) are protected by the Fourth Amendment from unlawful search and seizure by the government. But now we know. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in an opinion issued just last week: “The Fourth Amendment protects the content of stored electronic communications.” If you didn’t intend for something to be public and made a reasonable effort to keep it private (such as password-protecting it in the cloud), you’re entitled to privacy. The government doesn’t have the right to access it without a warrant and probable cause. In the case at hand, Texas officials used a disgruntled ex-employee of a contractor to spy on the contractor by searching its Dropbox files. To quote the Fifth Circuit, “This was not a good-faith act.” File (pardon the pun) all of this under “reasonable expectation of privacy.” Brought to you by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Proudly serving Americans since 1791. Comments are closed.
|
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed