Strange Bedfellows in E-Mail Case – Should your ISP be allowed to read your e-mail?

Civil liberties groups made common cause today with the Justice Department, a traditional target of their lawsuits, by filing court papers supporting the government’s appeal of a court ruling that said internet service providers are allowed to snoop on their customers.

By Ryan Singel

Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,64847,00.html

The friend of the court brief (PDF) argues the 1st Court of Appeal ruling "rewrites the field of internet surveillance law in ways that no one in Congress ever imagined."

The brief was filed Friday by the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Library Association.

The case centered on Bradford C. Councilman, an online bookseller who offered his customers free e-mail accounts and then sifted through e-mails from Amazon.com to his customers.

Councilman was charged in 2001 by the U.S. Attorney’s office with violating the Wiretap Act, which outlaws most interceptions of phone calls and e-mails. The case never made it to trial, as the court dismissed the charge.

A three-judge panel from the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal, arguing that the wiretap law did not apply since the e-mails were stored, even if only for seconds, on Councilman’s computer.

Federal wiretap law sets stricter standards for monitoring communications in progress than for stored communications.

Critics called the ruling an assault on the rights of e-mail users.

The Justice Department is pushing to have the ruling overturned because it upsets years of guidance about how to prosecute illegal snooping, and even warns the ruling could open the door to unfettered monitoring of internet phone calls.

The Justice Department filed its appeal Aug. 27 and is asking that the full court revisit the case.