I have more blogging planned this week on Warshak v. United States, and I need some technical help before I touch on some of the issues. Here’s what I need to know: If you’re a system administrator overseeing a computer network that provides e-mail, how easy it is to access a user’s e-mail and how often are you likely to do it in the regular course of business?
Ideally, I’d like to know the answer for a big commercial services like Yahoo or AOL as well as for smaller providers like private companies that provide company-based e-mail. Also, I’d be very interested in knowing how much the answer has changed over time. Practices can vary, of course, as the Warshak court notes: but I wonder, is there a widely shared practice that is pretty stable over time? And if so, what is it?
The reason I”m asking is that the Warshak court seemed to believe that the contents of user e-mails normally were sealed away from system administrators, and that accessing e-mail required a type of breaking in; the Court analogizes sysadmin reading of e-mail to postal employees opening sealed letters or bank employees opening safety deposit boxes. This belief seems to be an important part of the court’s Fourth Amendment holding (although clearly it was not the only part or reason). I’m wondering, was that an accurate characterization?
If you happen to be well-informed on these questions and you want to share your thoughts, send me an e-mail at orinkerr (at) yahoo.com. Thanks!
UPDATE: I’ve received a bunch of responses already — thanks to everyone for sending them in. Probably no need for more responses, although of course I’m happy to read whatever you want to send me. I’ll have more stuff up on this later in the week, too.
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