"Not really sure if it belogs here but freedom of information and privacy are isues I love to debate -- so ....." HSM
Enzyte May Not Make Your Penis Bigger, But the Promoter is Shaking His Dick at the Government
Remember Smiling Bob and the Enzyte commercials? I really miss them, and am disappointed that the claims were apparently not true. Ah, well. The commercials really cracked me up.
But the promoter of this impotent product, Stephen Warshak, is in the middle of fighting against a violation of his Fourth Amendment right in Washak v. United States. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed an amicus brief.
From EFF:During its criminal investigation, the Department of Justice illegally ordered defendant Stephen Warshak's email provider to prospectively "preserve" copies of his future emails, which the government later obtained using a subpoena and a non-probable cause court order. The government accomplished this "back door wiretap" by misusing the Stored Communications Act (SCA), which is only supposed to be used for obtaining emails already in storage with a provider.
In Wednesday's filing, EFF argues that the government's seizure violated federal privacy laws and Warshak's Fourth Amendment expectation of privacy in his email. As a result, the illegally seized emails should have been suppressed by the district court where Warshak was tried. All told, the government acquired over 27,000 emails spanning over six months from Warshak's email provider, all without probable cause.
"The Justice Department not only violated the Fourth Amendment and federal privacy statutes but its own surveillance manual when it conducted this 'back door wiretap' to intercept six months worth of emails without a warrant," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "Thankfully, this abuse has given the appeals court yet another opportunity to clarify that the Fourth Amendment protects the privacy of email against secret government snooping, even when it's in the hands of an email provider."
The EFF article cited also has a link to the brief (PDF) which is worth reading. It is also a bit scary. It states that not only did the government not obtain probable cause before seizing Mr. Warshak’s e-mails, it also violated the very provisions of the Stored Communications Act (known as the “wiretap act”).
You may or may not think that Mr. Warshak is a reputable fellow (unless you tried Enzyte and it worked), but this case is important in defending our expectations or privacy when sending or receiving e-mail, as well as demanding that the government adhere to its own regulations.
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