Private Corps Defeats Obama Admin. Warrantless Email Access

[teflor the ranger]

Private industry defeats Obama Administration attempts to gain warrantless access to e-mail accounts.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20002 ... icksArea.0

In a two-page brief filed Friday, the Obama administration withdrew its request for warrantless access to the complete contents of the Yahoo Mail accounts under investigation.

[Botef]

I suppose you could chop this up as a win for privacy, but its rather frustrating that these cases get dropped the moment they feel they might lose. Kevin Bankston's comments on the case sum that up pretty well.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/go ... ivacy-case

While this is a great victory for that Yahoo! subscriber, it's disappointing to those of us who wanted a clear ruling on the legality and constitutionality of the government's overreaching demand. Such demands are apparently a routine law enforcement technique. If the government withdraws its demand whenever an objection is raised by an email provider or a friend of the court like EFF, however, it robs the courts of the ability to issue opinions on whether the government's warrantless email surveillance practices are legal.