Many people around the globe might assume these days that the U.S. government can enact some shady magic called the NSA to access any email it wants, even if that shady magic is considered by some to be illegal.

But how many people—particularly U.S. residents—know that the American government technically has perfectly legal access to everyone's emails, so long as it says those digital notes might be useful for an investigation and the emails are more than 180 days old?

See also: The Australian Government is one step closer to having access to your data

That's what U.S. law says as it was written in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act in 1986, and the government made very clear earlier this month that it would like the law to stay that way, even if privacy law experts think this rule is so archaic it may as well be collecting dust in a museum.

The U.S. is currently battling Microsoft in a court case in which Microsoft says the government should require a warrant before it can go plundering through emails that originate inside or outside the U.S., even if the company has access to that correspondence and could provide it. The government responded to Microsoft's assertion on March 9 with this:

"Because the emails sought in this investigation are now more than 180 days old, the plain language of the [Stored Communications Act of the ECPA] would authorize the government to use a subpoena to compel disclosure of everything it sought pursuant to the Warrant."

In this photo taken July 3, 2014, a worker walks past a Microsoft logo outside the Microsoft Visitor Center in Redmond, Washington. Image: Ted S. Warren/Associated Press

The Department of Justice has long argued that citizens don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy when it comes to their old emails, according to experts, even though a government official would be violating the Fourth Amendment if they barged into a home and started reading through a person's old letters.

Some digital privacy experts have to stifle a sort of stunned laughter when they talk about why a law written to govern email privacy in 1986 still has so much relevance.

“A lot has changed since Ronald Reagan was in office," Bradley Shear, a lawyer who focuses on digital law, told Mashable. "Since that law was enacted we’ve gone through an entire technological revolution.”

Digital storage wasn't the same three decades ago. As Jennifer Granick, the director of civil liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, put it to Mashable: People used to download any important information onto their own hard drives after it was online for a while. Now, important information is everywhere.

A computer forensic examiner looks for evidence on hard drives. Image: Cliff Owen/Associated Press

"I think the idea was like an abandonment theory, kind of like if you leave your stuff at the dry cleaners too long," Granick said. "If it was important, you'd come back for it."

The issue potentially affects anyone who has ever used email, which is why experts are surprised there is hardly any outcry to update a law they say is clearly outdated.

Around 3.7 million commenters bombarded the FCC with messages late last year that overwhelmingly supported net neutrality, stopping an attempt by Internet service providers to block stronger regulations. Internet outrage in 2012 helped end SOPA and PIPA, proposed legislation that would have restricted access to sites that host pirated content.

Net neutrality protesters demonstrate across the street from the Comcast Center, on Sept. 15, 2014, in Philadelphia. Image: Matt Rourke/Associated Press

But when it comes to the government legally plundering emails, the anger department's been empty.

Experts wondered whether enough people even know about the 180 day law. Others suggested that maybe most folks didn't think the government would care about their emails, so why bother being angry about it?

They can't help but think that if more people knew, they'd be writing to their elected representatives, commenting in chat groups online, building awareness.

But for now, the experts only hear digital crickets.