email in your 'home'

[me-5yx05kfkO/aqeI1yJSURBw at public.gmane.org (Matthew Gillen)]

All the more reason to run your own mail server:
http://volokh.com/2009/10/28/district-judge-concludes-e-mail-not-protected-by-fourth-amendment/
...
> When a person uses the Internet, however, the user's actions are no
> longer in his or her physical home; in fact he or she is not truly acting
> in private space at all. The user is generally accessing the Internet
> with a network account and computer storage owned by an ISP like Comcast
> or NetZero. All materials stored online, whether they are e-mails or
> remotely stored documents, are physically stored on servers owned by an
> ISP. When we send an e-mail or instant message from the comfort of our
> own homes to a friend across town the message travels from our computer
> to computers owned by a third party, the ISP, before being delivered to
> the intended recipient. Thus, "private" information is actually being
> held by third-party private companies.
...
> First, it is uncertain whether we have a reasonable expectation of
> privacy in information sent through or stored by ISPs because the Fourth
> Amendment does not protect information revealed to third parties.

If this stands, I imagine it will have the exact same effect as what the
British cops say will happen if their 3-strikes law goes into effect:
email encryption becomes standard operating procedure for everyone, and law
enforcement's job actually gets more difficult:
http://techdirt.com/articles/20091027/0254326689.shtml

It's also not a good precedent for cloud-computing, google apps, amazon s3, etc.

Matt