Email Privacy in America

This blog post titled “US SenateReady to Wipe Out Email Privacy in America” was posted on "The Burnt Orange Report" on November 28, 2012 by Renato Ramirez and James C. Harrington. Ramirez is Chairman of the Board and CEO of IBC-Zapata and Harrington is Director of the Civil Rights Project, so we can infer that they are both highly educated people. How they are credible in the area of e-mail privacy, though, is still unknown. The authors’ intended audience is people who care about having their personal emails read without their permission and without a warrant. Also under the intended audience category are people who have the ability to stop the bill from becoming a law by writing or calling their Senators and pleading with them not to sign this bill proposed by Senator Patrick Leahy.  

Ramirez and Harrington try to win the reader over using mostly logos, logical appeal, appealing to our reasoning. They write that the US Senate will soon vote on a law that would authorize widespread warrantless access to Americans’ emails, Google Docs files, Twitter direct messages, etc., without a search warrant signed by a judge based on probably cause. They believe that this will gravely undermine Americans’ privacy and let government agencies have unbridled surveillance over Americans’ emails. Ramirez and Harrington say the bill would also give the FBI and Homeland Security more authority to gain full access to Internet accounts without notifying wither the owner or a judge. The bill would only require the federal agencies to issue a subpoena to be able to gain access to Americans’ emails and such. Even in situations that would still require a search warrant, the bill would excuse law enforcement officers from having to get a warrant if they claim an “emergency” situation. They also write that a provider would have to notify law enforcement in advance of any plans to tell its customers they’ve been the target of a warrant, order, or subpoena. The agency then could order the provider to delay notification of customers whose accounts have been accessed, from three to ten business days or up to 360 days. The authors argue that there is no legal reason agencies need all around success to people’s personal information without a search warrant. Ramirez and Harrington also argue that expectations of government officials should be higher in terms of protecting our constitutional freedoms.  They also give an example of former CIA director David Petraeus whose email was read without a warrant. They argue that if even Petraeus, who has much more power and prestige than most normal citizens, could have his emails read without a warrant, we should all be worried because it would be much easier to read out emails.

Ramirez and Harrington conclude their argument by writing that we should all preserve our constitutional protection from warrantless searches that haven’t been reviewed by the courts. They write that we shouldn’t allow the government to undermine our rights even in the name of national security. Lastly, using pathos, emotional appeal, they write that all of us—conservatives, liberals, and libertarians alike—should stand together on this because we all live under the constitution and deserve to keep our basic fundamental rights.

I agree with most of Ramirez and Harrington’s arguments. I do not think it is right for government agencies or FBI agents to read Americans’ emails without proper reasoning or warrants, however, if something bad were really happening that could put the nation in danger, I think they should have the right to do whatever they need to do within reason to try and keep the nation safe. I agree with Ramirez and Harrington in that there is a fine line between what government officials call “national security” because it actually is a matter of national security, and what they call “national security” to be able to do whatever they want to do. How do government officials know if it’s an “emergency” matter or not? How do we know if it’s a matter of “national security” or not? At some point I think we have to trust that our government officials know what they’re doing and trust that they won’t misuse and abuse their power.