From the article: "SNOOPING, like so many things in life, is going mobile and
online…..This is happening partly because technology makes snooping easier, and
partly because the law has not caught up with the technology. In the offline
world, governments generally need a judge to sign a warrant to put a wire-tap
in place; the same goes for a physical search of property. In the online world,
most data—concerning who called or e-mailed whom, or visited what website,
though not the content of a communication—is handed over without any such
judicial review.
…A good general principle would be to afford data stored in
a private e-mail account as much protection as letters stored in a locked desk
drawer—that is, law-enforcement agencies wanting to get a look at them should
need a warrant. Internet and mobile-phone companies, and the agencies that get data
from them, must be subject to proper reporting requirements." Read more
