IRS claims it can read your e-mail without a warrant (Communism is here!)

cnet ^ | 4/10/2013 | by Declan McCullagh

[tobyhill]

The Internal Revenue Service doesn't believe it needs a search warrant to read your e-mail.

Newly disclosed documents prepared by IRS lawyers says that Americans enjoy "generally no privacy" in their e-mail, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and similar online communications -- meaning that they can be perused without obtaining a search warrant signed by a judge.

That places the IRS at odds with a growing sentiment among many judges and legislators who believe that Americans' e-mail messages should be protected from warrantless search and seizure. They say e-mail should be protected by the same Fourth Amendment privacy standards that require search warrants for hard drives in someone's home, or a physical letter in a filing cabinet.

An IRS 2009 Search Warrant Handbook obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union argues that "emails and other transmissions generally lose their reasonable expectation of privacy and thus their Fourth Amendment protection once they have been sent from an individual's computer." The handbook was prepared by the Office of Chief Counsel for the Criminal Tax Division and obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

[Orangedog]

blasphemer! the cake should smite you or cast you out or something.

[KC_Lion]

You know it to be true :)

[I want the USA back]

Applying the same reasoning to mail means they can just pick up your mail and open it and read it. Bull$h!t. If I send a letter to a friend, I have an expectation of privacy.

We are completely unaware of the depth of the totalitarianism we live in.

[Orangedog]

la la la la la...not listening to KC_Lion...la la la la la!

[Jyotishi]

> Time for someone to devise an encrypted mail service.

There are some already out there but they are probably operated by the IRS.

[KC_Lion]

Whatever you say >:D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIT6irvxiL4

[G Larry]

Fine.

“Poisoned Fruit”

Illegally obtained evidence is not admissible in court.

[tobyhill]

I’m sorry but I don’t trust the courts to protect my Constitutional Rights.

[dfwgator]

“The private life is dead, history has killed it.”

[1010RD]

They keep being unreasonable.

[onyx]

Thanks very much for the ping, dearest you, Nachum.

I’ve always conducted my E-mail, as though the IRS were reading it and now I learn I was right all along.

[griswold3]

Well, what do you expect from a society that does not uphold the laws? You can’t expect due process any longer. The fools that voted for Obama have ‘fundamentally transformed’ this nation.

[matt04]

A public FB post or tweet is not the same as a private email between two parties.

[G Larry]

I would plead the 5th, when asked about content.

I would then point out that they have violated the 4th Ammendment by possessing the information they cite.

Then ask for dismissal.

[dforest]

All my e-mails from here on out will say FU, and FU.

[upchuck]

Read my tag.

At the bottom of each email I send is this statement:

To the faceless, jack-booted government bureaucrat who just scanned this email: SCREW YOU!

This pisses me off to no end. There's nothing in my emails worth scanning, it's the principle of it. We have certain unalienable rights and we are getting pounded by a bunch of Marxist bullies.

[tobyhill]

“An IRS 2009 Search Warrant Handbook obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union argues that “emails and other transmissions generally lose their reasonable expectation of privacy and thus their Fourth Amendment protection once they have been sent from an individual’s computer.”

[E. Pluribus Unum]

http://hushmail.com/

[BobL]

I’m not too hot on the E-Mail end, but FACEBOOK, sure - if some tax cheat is STUPID ENOUGH to brag about it on Facebook, then let them explain it to the “Men in Black”.

[madison10]

Thank you.