Is email interception legal

[Charles Lindsey]

	On Tue, 6 Aug 2002 07:19:15 +0100
	"David Swarbrick" <david@swarb.freeuk.com> said...

> Judgment July 22, 2002
> 
> A telecommunications company would not commit the criminal offence of
> unlawfully intercepting a communication in the course of its transmission if
> it intercepted e-mails which were the subject of an application for
> production of special procedure material in order to preserve them pending
> the hearing of the application.

What is not clear is whether NTL were proposing to preserve them in a
"quarantined" area where they (NTL) would not be able to access them
without resort to some special action (such as a special password which
gave access only to that area).

> 
> 
> THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE, giving the judgment of the court, said that NTL had
> a computer system which automatically stored e-mails from an internet
> service provider.
> 
> 
> In their Lordships' judgment, in view of section 2(7) and (8) of the 2000
> Act there would be an offence committed by NTL if it transferred e-mails to
> another address so that they could be available subsequently if the court
> made an order under section 9 of the 1984 Act, if NTL was not entitled to
> rely on some lawful authority.

The question that now arises is whether the distinction between
quarantined and non-quarantined areas was put to the court, and hence
whether this statement would have applied in either case. As is clear
from our recent discussions, this distinction is crucial for other
purposes, but it is not one which would occur naturally to non-technical
lawyers as being "interesting" for this context.

Does the full judgement throw any more light on this issue?

Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
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