Email Safe From Government Searches

For supporters of the Fourth Amendment Monday was a good day. In a landmark ruling the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that the government must have a search warrant before it can covertly seize and search emails stored by email service providers.

Warshak v. United States was brought in the Southern District of Ohio federal court by Steven Warshak to stop the government's secret searchers and seizures of his stored email using the SCA. The district court ruled that the government cannot use the SCA to gather stored email without a warrant or notice to the email account holder; the government appealed that ruling to the 6th Circuit.