Judge Mosman reversed a Magistrate’s Order and ruled that in connection with emails, no notification of a warrant served on a third party – in this case the ISP holder – is required to be given to the individual who wrote the email(s). In the decision, the Judge notes that there is a “…fundamental misunderstanding of the lack of privacy we all have in our e-mails. Some people seem to think that they are as private as letters, phone calls, or journal entries. The blunt fact is, they are not.”

“In this third party context, the Fourth Amendment notice requirement is satisfied when a valid warrant is obtained and served on the holder of the property to be seized, the ISP. In this case, the ISPs were served with the warrants to obtain the relevant e-mails.”

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