What: The Justice Department asks a judge to approve Patriot Act e-mail monitoring without any evidence of criminal behavior.
When: Decided Feb. 2, 2006 by U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan in Washington, D.C.
Outcome: E-mail surveillance approved.
What happened: As part of a grand jury investigation that's still secret, the Justice Department asked a federal magistrate judge to approve monitoring of an unnamed person's e-mail correspondents.
The request had a twist: Instead of asking to eavesdrop on the contents of the e-mail messages, which would require some evidence of wrongdoing, prosecutors instead requested the identities of the correspondents. Also included in the request was header information like date and time and Internet address--but not subject lines.
The federal magistrate judge balked and asked the Justice Department to submit an additional brief to demonstrate that such a request would be legal.
Instead, prosecutors asked Judge Hogan to step in. He reviewed the portion of federal law dealing with "pen register" and "trap and trace" devices--terms originating in the world of telephone wiretapping--and concluded it "unambiguously" authorizes the e-mail surveillance request.
Full Article by Declan McCullagh
# posted by madthumbs @ 2:25 PM
