I have previously written on the dangers of using e-mail, which is, probably other than texting, the most convenient form of communications available today, providing a largely free means to send someone correspondence, images, legal documents, etc., instantly, anywhere in the world.I wrote that the FISA court could allow the government’s acquisition of all telephone and e-mail communications to and from a country of foreign policy interest, e.g., Russia or Venezuela, including communications made to and from U.S. citizens and residents without a showing of probable cause.
I wrote that Employers are entitled to monitor employees’ e-mail when they are using their company’s e-mail systems. While employers should warn employees of this fact in writing, logging on to one’s own Yahoo or Gmail account will not cloak you from your employer’s prying eye. Since you are using your employer’s computer network to do so, he or she is still entitled to monitor the system.
Well, now comes a new threat to the use of e-mail as a communications means. In prosecuting an extortion case against one Thomas DiFiore, “a reputed boss” in a New York crime family, prosecutors informed Mr. DiFiore that they would be reading the emails sent to his lawyers from jail and using their content as evidence against him. This practice, according to the July 22nd New York Times, is not limited to New York City but has been adopted by federal prosecutors across the country. In Texas, according to the Times, this practice has extended to recording attorney-client calls from jails. Prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York once filtered lawyer e-mails out from inspection but “budget cuts no longer allow for that.”
So, say you have been incarcerated, let’s assume wrongly, and would like to prepare a case to get yourself exonerated. How do you communicate with your attorney to build that case? You can have your attorney drop by the jail and visit you, but apparently a visit to a surgeon accused of Medicare fraud, (not to minimize it but not exactly a violent crime, except to taxpayer’s pockets) from Manhattan to Brooklyn by the surgeon’s lawyers took five hours, including travel time and waiting for jail personnel to retrieve the surgeon/defendant. A look at minimum security institutions on the Federal Bureau of Prisons website reveals that the closest minimum security prison camp to Chicago is in Duluth, Minnesota, an 8 hour drive or a $269.00 plane trip according to Google Maps. According to the surgeon’s lawyer, confidential postal mail takes up to two weeks to reach a Defendant; and Brooklyn is a lot closer to Manhattan than Duluth is to Chicago. Oh, and the surgeon’s lawyer is a public defender being paid $125.00/hour.
A U.S. District Court Judge in Atlanta ruled in 2012 that an inmate, in prison for conspiring to import fake prescription drugs, had no reasonable expectation of privacy in using email. In a decision involving the reputed crime boss, the New York judge overseeing the case ruled that the government was allowed to review the e-mails writing that, “The government’s policy does not unreasonably interfere with his ability to consult [his] counsel.”
So that call from jail is going to cost more than the proverbial “dime” and e-mail may not always be the best means to communicate important information. It’s probably not a good idea to post it on Facebook either. See http://nyti.ms/1nSGKwD
