1. The Fourth Amendment, unlike other amendments, says, "the rights of the people to be secure in their persons, places, houses and effects..." not simply the rights of "citizens." What you advocate is permitting the wholesale abrogation of privacy of tourists, visitors, lawful residents and others in this country, simply because they are not citizens? It was the dual fact that the Russians were not citizens and the fact that the searches took place overseas, and the Court's erroneous assumption that the search was legal in Russia that permitted the extraterritorial search, which the court deemed to not be a seizure, but which the FBI later described as a seizure.

2. Although most corporate policies permit computer and internet use only for business purposes, almost all permit and many encourage the use of web based email services in order to permit employees to send and receive email that does not carry with it the corporate domain. I am sure that an IP log file of your company will reveal numerous hits to Yahoo mail or Hotmail. Again, this does not mean that the sysadmin or security personell can later log into the employee's personal email service and read mail. Such actions would violate 18 U.S.C. 1030, 18 U.S.C. 2701, and otehr statutes.

[ reply ]

Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/columns/105/16265#16265