Court Rules for Expectation of Privacy in E-mail
Attorney Blogs
[##_1L|1066659014.jpg|width="130" height="98" alt=""|_##]The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that the government must have a search warrant before it can secretly seize and search stored e-mails. People that use e-mail as a form of communication have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Although surveillance of in-transit e-mails is prohibited, the government has been using the Stored Communications Act (SCA) to search stored e-mails without having to use a warrant. This week the appeals court found that the act violated the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.
"It goes without saying that like the telephone earlier in our history, e-mail is an ever-increasing mode of private communication, and protecting shared communications through this medium is as important to Fourth Amendment principles today as protecting telephone conversations has been in past," the appeals court said.
Steven Warshak, owner and president of Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals, brought the case against the government to stop investigators from searching his stored e-mails using the SCA. The district court ruled in favor of Warshak, and the government appealed the ruling to the 6th Circuit, where they were ultimately defeated.
Warshak is in the middle of a fraud investigation. He has pleaded not guilty to charges that he and his business defrauded customers and banks out of at least $100 million in a scheme where they billed credit cards without authorization.
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Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC
A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party
Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party
However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.