Texas becomes first state to require warrant for e-mail snooping

[Feuer Frei!]

8 days old. Nonetheless:


Texas Gov. Rick Perry has signed (http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=83R&Bill=HB2268) a bill giving Texans more privacy (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/05/unprecedented-e-mail-privacy-bill-sent-to-texas-governors-desk/) over their inboxes than anywhere else in the United States.
On Friday, Perry signed HB 2268 (http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=83R&Bill=HB2268), effective immediately. The law shields residents of the Lone Star State from snooping by state and local law enforcement without a warrant.

SOURCE (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/texas-becomes-first-state-to-require-warrant-for-e-mail-snooping/)

[Feld Grau]

Let's hope the rest of the nation follows suit

[Sailor Steve]

Hooray for Texas!

I check for new emails every time I get online. I read new ones and delete them instantly. The only things sitting in my mailbox are references to things I've ordered online. Once the package is delivered those get deleted too.

"The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neithe restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits."
-Thomas Jefferson to M. L'Hommand, 1787

[vienna]

Two points:


Federal trumps state/local; if the local LEOs want your e-mail info, all they have to do is contact the Feds, have them find some reason to snoop at the Fed level and have the Feds turn it over to the locals as a gesture of "interagency courtesy;
Your e-mail doesn't disapper simply because you delete it from you e-mail folders; a copy of your mail exists on pretty much any server the message has passed through; it is a common practice to ferret out "deleted" or "lost" messages from third party servers;
...

<O>

[Catfish]

^
Third point:

The laws against snooping and eavesdropping already exist, US-wide.

If those are not taken seriously, why does anybody think Texas will be an exception, just because they create an additional new law locally, that says pretty much the same as the old one ?