Why is secrecy of correspondence treated differently than telephone or electronic surveillance
<p>According to wikipedia <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrecy_of_correspondence" rel="nofollow noreferrer">&quot;secrecy of correspondence&quot;</a> &quot;Paper letters have, in most jurisdictions, remained outside the legal scope of law enforcement surveillance, even in cases of &quot;reasonable searches and seizures&quot;. &quot;</p>
<p>Why is communication with letters treated differently than communication by other means?</p>

<h2>They aren’t treated differently</h2>
<p>In most jurisdictions, law enforcement requires a warrant to intercept/open/read the contents of physical or electronic correspondence.</p>
<p>Similarly, in most jurisdictions, a warrant is <em>not</em> required to read the metadata: who is communicating with whom, how and when but not <em>what</em>. That is they can read what’s written on the outside of the envelope or the routing information of the email/SMS.</p>
<p>Telephony is <em>not</em> correspondence because it is not the intent of the parties to create a permanent record. It is usually treated as any other conversation - if it carried out in a place and manner that the participants have a reasonable expectation of privacy it’s usually illegal to record it (electronically or by writing it down). If it’s said publicly, it isn’t illegal.</p>

communications-law