Sen Wyden: Your data’s yours no matter on whose server it lives

Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR) called for legal reforms that embrace an understanding that the mere act of handing over digital data doesn't mean giving way a user's right to privacy.

What Sen Wyden, long a spirited privacy advocate, is pressing for is reform of the so-called "third-party doctrine," or the idea that by releasing data to another person, business or entity one gives up some Fourth Amendment protections. The doctrine is rooted in the 1979 Smith v. Maryland decision, in which the Supreme Court found that telephone users had no reasonable reason to believe that their calling records are private.