Boston, MA - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in a case that could have a profound effect on the privacy of Internet communications. The brief argues that the decision in US v. Councilman, soon to be reheard by the full First Circuit, should be overturned. A panel of First Circuit judges previously ruled that it does not violate criminal wiretap laws when an email service provider monitors the content of users' incoming messages without their knowledge or consent. The defendant in the case, Bradford Councilman, is a bookseller who offered email service to his customers. Councilman configured the email processing software so that all incoming email sent to his customers from Amazon.com, a competitor, was secretly copied and sent to his personal email account before it arrived in the intended recipient's mailbox. The court ruled that this interception did not violate federal law, stating that 'it may well be that the protections of the Wiretap Act have been eviscerated as technology advances...'

EFF