Privacy Groups Push ECPA E-Mail Reform

Privacy and limited government groups in the Digital 4th Coalition say it is imperative that Congress update the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) to better protect cloud-stored e-mails held by Internet service providers from government surveillance, and without any harmful amendments that would give federal agencies like the SEC a carve-out from those heightened protections. That came in a press conference in advance of a hearing Sept. 16 in the Senate Judiciary Committee on legislation -- the ECPA Amendments Act -- that would extend privacy protections to e-mails over 180 days old. There is a similar E-Mail Privacy Act pending in the House.

Currently, older e-mails have a lesser standard for government access than newer e-mails. The current bills would require a probable cause warrant to access third-party e-mails older than 180 days, just as it is required for those newer than 180 days. On the conference call with reporters were Gabe Rottman, legislative Counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union; Lou Mejia, former chief litigation counsel at the SEC, and Morgan Reed, executive director of Act: The App Association, and each took turns talking about the need for the heightened protections.https://www.benton.org/sites/all/modules/contrib/bueditor/icons/image.png