SECRET ORDERS TARGET E-MAIL -- IS IT CONSTITUTIONAL ?

Wall Street Journal -- 10/10/2011 -- Julia Angwin

Google and Sonic pressed for the right to inform Mr. Appelbaum of the secret court orders, according to people familiar with the investigation. Google declined to comment. Mr. Appelbaum, 28 years old, hasn't been charged with wrongdoing.

The court clashes in the WikiLeaks case provide a rare public window into the growing debate over a federal law that lets the government secretly obtain information from people's email and cellphones without a search warrant.

Several court decisions have questioned whether the law, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, violates the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

. . . it can be easier for law-enforcement officers to see a person's email information than it is to see their postal mail.

Another significant difference: A person whose email is inspected this way often never knows a search was conducted. That's because court orders under the 1986 law are almost always sealed, and the Internet provider is generally prohibited from notifying the customer whose data is searched. By contrast, search warrants are generally delivered to people whose property is being searched.

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