When the government serves a search warrant on an Internet service provider to seize the contents of an e-mail account, prosecutors have no obligation to notify the account holder, a federal judge in Washington ruled this week.

Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia overturned a lower judge’s ruling that would have required the government to notify the e-mail subscriber. Lamberth’s ruling [.pdf] was unsealed on Monday.