1) A rental car, like a rented house, is still under your control. But your e-mail account on Google's servers is under their control. They can do whatever they want with it. It's more like your friend letting you use part of his garage to store stuff--a third party still retains full control over the space.
2) As far as I can tell, Google can access your e-mail whenever it wants, so the "locked container" analogy also fails.
Again, I think the fact that Google/Microsoft/etc can scan your emails and documents to send you targeted ads is determinative here. If you're voluntarily exposing the contents of your documents to that process, how can you claim to have an expectation of privacy?
I pay Microsoft to host my email on my behalf so that I can consume the service. Just like I pay Avis for the use of a car or Hilton for use of a room. I don't own either, but are given controls to regulate acess (ie a key)
The interesting thing to me here is that the IRS is not claiming Google/Microsoft, it is claiming all email. Including that which is served by private servers that goes to other recipients on the same private servers.
The fact that you own the box that email was delivered to and that email never left that box has no bearing in the matter for the IRS. They still claim the right to inspect it, without a warrant.
You don't own your gmail inbox, you don't own your twitter account, you don't own your facebook account. Google, Twitter, and Facebook own them. You don't even rent them. Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc, fully own them and fully control them at all times, retaining the right to do whatever they want with them at any time.
You just missed the point. The IRS is speaking to all email systems. If I have a private server in my private house, and I send another message to another user on the same server (i.e. local delivery only), then the IRS's claims still apply to that. I don't see how the Google/Twitter/Facebook come into play here.
I'm not sure how you can parse a phrase that starts "generally..." and read it as encompassing "all email systems." That's facially not what the IRS is saying.
Google, Twitter, etc, come into play because they are the kinds of communications the IRS is referring to--electronic communications stored on servers controlled wholly by unrelated third parties.
The BIG difference is that you'll know about it, because the warrant will go to you. Not only will you know about it, but you can control the timeframe in which you respond as well as explore legal challenges and remedies. You will be in control of how things play out.
The IRS isn't going to break into your mail server.
People should really, really be running their own mail servers, and I suspect should be providing their own dialtone as well. The latter is certainly much more complicated and technical, but that level of control is a very nice thing to have.
Because I know and expect that Google will use my emails to display targeted ads. And I also know that, under this process, my data remains in the custody of Google. I still fully expect Google not to send my data outside its servers, except to my recipient.
The 4th amendment does not restrain the government from looking at any information you don't want them to look at. It restraints them from personally harassing you to get information without a warrant. Once the information is out of your hands, you can imagine laws that will protect that information so it is used only according to your expectations, but the 4th amendment isn't the mechanism for that.
1) A rental car, like a rented house, is still under your control. But your e-mail account on Google's servers is under their control. They can do whatever they want with it. It's more like your friend letting you use part of his garage to store stuff--a third party still retains full control over the space.
2) As far as I can tell, Google can access your e-mail whenever it wants, so the "locked container" analogy also fails.
Again, I think the fact that Google/Microsoft/etc can scan your emails and documents to send you targeted ads is determinative here. If you're voluntarily exposing the contents of your documents to that process, how can you claim to have an expectation of privacy?