Feds can freely look at your emails after 180 days

[Scott Downey]

I did not know that, now you can know it also. You really do not have privacy from government regarding emails, they can look at them anyway, but here without warrants.

Why You Should Delete Emails Instead of Archiving Them (howtogeek.com)
In the USA, Emails Are “Abandoned” After 180 Days
Those are all good arguments for cleaning up your email account, even if you’re not particularly concerned about email privacy. But if you are concerned about privacy, know this:

In the USA, emails are considered “abandoned” after 180 days. The government can look at these emails without a warrant thanks to the Electronic Communications Protection Act, a law passed in 1986 when electronic communications were very different.

As Wired pointed out in 2013, “It’s beyond ridiculous that email (but not mail) has been left out of privacy laws.”

There have been attempts to fix this loophole and require the government to get a warrant before accessing emails over 180 days old. The most notable attempt was in 2016, when the Email Privacy Act passed unanimously in the U.S. House of Representatives and went on to die in the Senate. As of January 2021, the law stands.

So, if you’re storing a lot of old emails in an online account, you should keep this in mind.

 

[Reynolds]

I did not know that, now you can know it also. You really do not have privacy from government regarding emails, they can look at them anyway, but here without warrants.

Why You Should Delete Emails Instead of Archiving Them (howtogeek.com)
In the USA, Emails Are “Abandoned” After 180 Days
Those are all good arguments for cleaning up your email account, even if you’re not particularly concerned about email privacy. But if you are concerned about privacy, know this:

In the USA, emails are considered “abandoned” after 180 days. The government can look at these emails without a warrant thanks to the Electronic Communications Protection Act, a law passed in 1986 when electronic communications were very different.

As Wired pointed out in 2013, “It’s beyond ridiculous that email (but not mail) has been left out of privacy laws.”

There have been attempts to fix this loophole and require the government to get a warrant before accessing emails over 180 days old. The most notable attempt was in 2016, when the Email Privacy Act passed unanimously in the U.S. House of Representatives and went on to die in the Senate. As of January 2021, the law stands.

So, if you’re storing a lot of old emails in an online account, you should keep this in mind.

Thanks for the info. I better delete mine quick before they find out what my secret bait for Coyote trapping is.