ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS Flashcards
Are electronic communications determined to have an expectation of privacy under the 4th Amendment?
NO; Supreme Court has consistently ruled that, under
the Fourth Amendment, a person cannot ordinarily
expect privacy in information that he has transmitted
through an intermediary
Why is electronic communications not considered to have an expectation of privacy….entirely?
Because when a person sends an electronic
communication because the message must be copied
and stored along the way (at least temporarily)
on equipment that is owned and controlled by the
service provider
Which act determined the less restrictive intrusion upon electronic communications?
Congress acted
first, having decided that if the Fourth Amendment
did not protect the privacy of these forms of communications,
it would write a law that did. The result
was the Stored Communications Act of 1986 (SCA).
When does an electronic message fall within the SCA-Stored Communications Act?
a message falls within the SCA if (1)
it was “stored,” and (2) it was stored on the equipment
of an “electronic communication service” (ECS)
or a “remote computing service” (RCS).
When is a communication considered “stored”? And what is the court ruling on storage?
An electronic
communication is deemed “stored” if it was
being held temporarily by a provider as an incident
to its transmission to the recipient. Thus, most
courts have ruled that an email or other communication
that has been opened by the recipient is no
longer in temporary storage
Does SCA cover searches of suspect’s computers for electronically stored messages?
NO; SCA do not cover searches of email, voicemail, or text
messages that have been stored on computers or
other storage devices that are owned or controlled by
the suspect
Do the police need a search warrant to search a suspect’s computer?
officers will need a
warrant to search a suspect’s computer
What is a “record”?
“records” consist of raw data that is
merely ancillary to the communication.25 Examples
include the “to/from” names and addresses, dates,
and times pertaining to an email message, the phone
numbers that were transmitted to telephone switching
equipment, the addresses of websites that were
visited on a certain computer, and the internet or IP
address assigned to a particular computer.
What is “content”?
The term “electronic communications” (also called
“content”) refers to the message that is conveyed by
the sender, including statements of fact, thoughts,
requests, conclusions and other expressions
Is a URL deemed a record or content?
CONTENT: it is possible, that Uniform Resource Locators
(URLs) will be deemed content because they
indicate “the location of specific documents on the
Web” that a person has viewed and, thus, constitute
the type of “personal information” that may be entitled
to greater protection
When should an officer conduct a search warrant on electronic communications
officers should
seek a search warrant if they have probable cause to
believe that certain email, voicemail, or text messages
constitute evidence of a crime
The SCA requires a search warrant for new messages that have been in existence for what period of time?
The SCA requires
a warrant if, as is usually the case, officers want
to search for messages that have been in storage
for 180 days or less
Upon a NOTICE TO PRESERVE what is the timeframe allotted pursuant to SCA?
SCA provides
that ISPs must preserve these messages for 90 days
if officers request them to do so
What is notice to preserve?
when officers determine that voicemail, email, or
text messages may be relevant to an investigation,
they should immediately contact the provider, give
notice that a warrant will be sought, and request
that they save any stored messages
Can officers ask for an extension on a notice to preserve, if so, how long?
YES,90 DAYS; when officers determine that voicemail, email, or
text messages may be relevant to an investigation,
they should immediately contact the provider, give
notice that a warrant will be sought, and request
that they save any stored messages
