In Controversial Ruling, US Appellate Court Permits "Snooping" of E-Mail by ISP

The First Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the decision of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts to dismiss a federal wiretapping indictment against an ISP based on its reviewing the contents of customers' e-mail messages for competitive commercial purposes. Both the ISP, Interloc Inc (Interloc), and its vice-president, Bradford Councilman, were charged with conspiracy to engage in conduct prohibited by the US Wiretap Act. Interloc's primary business was an online rare and out-of-print book listing service. As part of those services, Interloc provided subscribing book dealers with an e-mail address and acted as the subscribers' ISP. Councilman developed software which saved copies of inbound e-mail messages from to subscribers, in hopes of Interloc gaining competitive intelligence from the communications. By a 2-1 ruling, the Court of Appeals held that federal wiretap laws are drawn sufficiently narrowly to catch only communications in transit, not communications being stored, even temporarily. As a result, there was no breach of the legislation by the accused Councilman. However, the acquiror of the now-defunct Interloc, Alibris Inc, and Interloc's former computer systems administrator both pled guilty to charges against them. The former was assessed a $250,000 fine and the latter was placed on probation. For a copy of the reason for judgment in United States of America v Councilman, see: http://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/03-1383-01A.pdf. For a news report of the case, visit: http://makeashorterlink.com/?G22E32BB8. Summary by: Jennifer Jannuska