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BOB EGELKO, SF CHRONICLE - Federal agents do not need a search warrant
to monitor a suspect's computer use and determine the e-mail addresses
and Web pages the suspect is contacting, a federal appeals court ruled
Friday.
In a drug case from San Diego County, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals in San Francisco likened computer surveillance to the "pen
register" devices that officers use to pinpoint the phone numbers a
suspect dials, without listening to the phone calls themselves. The U.S.
Supreme Court upheld the use of pen registers in 1979, saying callers
have no right to conceal from the government the numbers they
communicate electronically to the phone companies that carry their
calls.
Federal law requires court approval for a pen register. But because it
is not considered a search, authorities do not need a search warrant,
which would require them to show that the surveillance is likely to
produce evidence of a crime. They also do not need a wiretap order,
which would require them to show that less intrusive methods of
surveillance have failed or would be futile. In Friday's ruling, the
court said computer users should know that they lose privacy
protections with e-mail and Web site addresses when they are
communicated to the company whose equipment carries the messages.
Likewise, the court said, although the government learns what computer
sites someone visited, "it does not find out the contents of the
messages or the particular pages on the Web sites the person viewed."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/07/07/BAGMNQSJDA1.DTL
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BOB EGELKO, SF CHRONICLE - Federal agents do not need a search warrant
to monitor a suspect's computer use and determine the e-mail addresses
and Web pages the suspect is contacting, a federal appeals court ruled
Friday.
In a drug case from San Diego County, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals in San Francisco likened computer surveillance to the "pen
register" devices that officers use to pinpoint the phone numbers a
suspect dials, without listening to the phone calls themselves. The U.S.
Supreme Court upheld the use of pen registers in 1979, saying callers
have no right to conceal from the government the numbers they
communicate electronically to the phone companies that carry their
calls.
Federal law requires court approval for a pen register. But because it
is not considered a search, authorities do not need a search warrant,
which would require them to show that the surveillance is likely to
produce evidence of a crime. They also do not need a wiretap order,
which would require them to show that less intrusive methods of
surveillance have failed or would be futile. In Friday's ruling, the
court said computer users should know that they lose privacy
protections with e-mail and Web site addresses when they are
communicated to the company whose equipment carries the messages.
Likewise, the court said, although the government learns what computer
sites someone visited, "it does not find out the contents of the
messages or the particular pages on the Web sites the person viewed."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/07/07/BAGMNQSJDA1.DTL
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