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Yes, the "third party doctrine." Really stupid stuff, especially in an age where we do almost everything over networks provided by third parties with services provided by other third parties, but our expectation is that the data we are transmitting should be as private as if we were storing documents in our home.

There is hope that some of this will be reversed, much like the supreme court ruled that phone conversations were private even though they were over third party connections, and how the SCA provides protections for things like email and (some) sever logs.

In the meantime, the government will continue to try to stretch what it is allowed under the third party doctrine without significant check.

Ars Technica had some good coverage last week of the Obama administration successfully arguing that law enforcement can request cell tower connections (giving a rough tracking of a phone's location) without a warrant:

The Obama administration laid out its position in a legal brief last month, arguing that customers have "no privacy interest" in [cell-site location records] held by a network provider. Under a legal principle known as the "third-party doctrine," information voluntarily disclosed to a third party ceases to enjoy Fourth Amendment protection. The government contends that this rule applies to cell phone location data collected by a network provider.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/03/obama-admin-...



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