A new bill introduced today in the US House of Representatives seeks to require warrants before police can trawl through your e-mail or track your cell phone, reports CNET. The legislation is backed by several technology companies, including Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter. But given the governments history with privacy bills, it faces a high chance of getting blocked by the Department of Justice.
via Cops don’t need a warrant to see your e-mail—but they might soon | Ars Technica.
i453ethics 
In my opinion, this is something that has been needing to happen for a long time. Opening up somebody else’s mail is considered a felony. One’s house or automobile can’t be searched without a warrant and probable cause. We have set up this country on a certain expectancy of privacy.
Additionally, people’s emails, contents of their phones and laptops, etc have some of the most sensitive information one could uncover about another in a lot of cases. Many people save all their passwords, credit card information, and other sensitive data on their laptops which can lead to further access to even more sensitive data. Users of these technologies never think of the privacy they expect through it. It’s inherent that this is their computer, their phone, their email, and that nobody else will ever be looking through it. With laws currently though, states such as Michigan allow law enforcement to confiscated cellular phones and download all personal data using a device with every plug imagineable on it.
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2011/04/michigan-police-search-cell-phones-during-traffic-stops/
With law enforcement having the ability to search individual’s phones during a simple traffic stop, it feels that these gray areas are being utilized to their highest potential and with technology in today’s world, laws must be put in place to protect individual’s right to privacy in a technology sense just as they’re protected in their home and other personal things.
Every time a new technology emerges law enforcement try to get away with what is later deemed unconstitutional monitoring without warrants. They did this with phones and illegal wire tapping, they did it with cell phones, I’m not surprised they have been doing it with e-mail as well. I know some E-mail providers have been denying them these records without a warrant but I am also aware some have been turning over anything law enforcement organizations have been requesting. It says a lot about law enforcement agencies to me that every time we get something new we have to wait years for the court system to step in and tell them they are violating peoples rights when they know they are.