No, this is outrageous. This guy was not suspected of a crime, he was suspected of talking to someone who committed a crime.
This is identical to the feds now slurping up all personal email (and probably facebook accounts, and whatever else) belonging to Washington Post and Guardian employees under a gag order, because they talked to Snowden, who "committed a crime".
It doesn't matter if it's widespread or wholesale, it matters that they can do it when they want to.
He was not even suspected of talking to someone who committed a crime. He was suspected of talking to someone who was under investigation.
The really appalling part of this story is that Google was ordered to turn over all of this guy's email -- not just that email which was related to Wikileaks or Julian Assange, but all of it.
I'm confused, again. Don't we subpoena people all the time just because they are associated with the subject of an active investigation? That's literally Law Enforcement 101.
Do you think they didn't bother to search the available records for close associates of a Mob boss under investigation for racketeering? That they just wiretap the one guy and that's all?
What do emails not sent to or received from the subject of the investigation have to do with the investigation? It might have been reasonable, if the government had real reason to believe Julian Assange have broken our laws, to request emails related to him or to Wikileaks. It is not acceptable to just demand everything, unless they are also seeking to prosecute this person.
Tell that to the judge man, he or she signed the warrant. Maybe the government was able to put forward the theory that there's a whole network of like-minded people working with Assange, a network that cooperated to run a website or something, and that this guy's emails should be useful in piecing that together for use in the eventual trial against whoever the hell they're investigating.
Obtaining a warrant does not require that there be probable cause that the target or subject of the warrant committed a crime. Obtaining a warrant requires that there be probable cause that the specified search will find evidence of a crime.
If the police have probable cause to believe that a third party buried a body in my backyard without my knowledge, a judge can and should issue a warrant directing the police to dig up my backyard.
"It doesn't matter if it's widespread or wholesale, it matters that they can do it when they want to."
That is precisely what matters. The 4th amendment requires a warrant that some specific person or location (or in our modern world, set of files) is evidence of a crime. In a free country, you may still get caught up in an investigation. In an unfree country, everyone is constantly unsure whether the government is spying on them.
This is identical to the feds now slurping up all personal email (and probably facebook accounts, and whatever else) belonging to Washington Post and Guardian employees under a gag order, because they talked to Snowden, who "committed a crime".
It doesn't matter if it's widespread or wholesale, it matters that they can do it when they want to.