On Sun, 11 Jul 2004 15:13:16 -0400, Hector Santos wrote
Ouch!
That is not what the ruling says and it should definitely not
suggest a new era of irresponsible and unethical programming that
will "would undo decades of practice and precedent."
It's an odd ruling. It apparently hinges on the fact that wiretap law
protects messages that are not being stored -- for example, your phone company
can't listen in on your phone calls, but voice mail is fair game. The court
apparently ruled that even if a message is only being held for further
routing, it's being "stored" on that server, and so eavesdropping is legal.
IANAL, of course, and I haven't read the whole decision.