YOU might expect the Chinese authorities to pay scant regard to electronic privacy, but surely things are different in the US. Apparently not. A federal court in Massachusetts ruled on 29 June that an internet service provider that had copied and read customers鈥� emails was not breaking the law.
Privacy advocates are calling it an 鈥渆xtremely dangerous decision鈥�. They say it leaves the door wide open for abuse of people鈥檚 personal information.
At issue was whether a now defunct company, Interloc, which provided internet services, violated the US鈥檚 wire-tap laws when it scanned the contents of its customers鈥� emails without their consent. The operator of the service, Bradford Councilman, had installed software to intercept emails from the online retailer Amazon and extract information to help his own book-dealing business.
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The US government prosecuted Councilman for violating provisions of the Wiretap Act that outlaw eavesdropping. But two out of the three judges ruled that there had been no violation, saying that the act does not apply to 鈥渃ommunications in electronic storage鈥�. And there was scant reassurance in the ruling, which said: 鈥淲e observe, as most courts have, that the language [of the Wiretap Act] may be out of step with the technological realities of computer crimes.鈥� The lone dissenting judge wrote in his statement that 鈥渢he line that we draw in this case will have far-reaching effects on personal privacy and security鈥�.