ECPA, the Law on the Protection of Personal Information Email Communications, will be discussed at the US Congress on December 1, 2015. In anticipation of this, we wanted to give an overview of the ECPA - what it is and how we'd like to see reformed.
What is it?
ECPA defines the rules when the police and the government can read our e-mail, watch our photos and access other content that is stored in the cloud
ECPA is unchanged since its adoption in 1986 - .. despite the incredible technological advances of recent decades
Why does it need reform?
ECPA has remained unchanged since 1986, which left our communications open to unwarranted government intrusion.
As the law is currently written, the government and responsible for enforcement can access personal documents and communications in remote storage in the cloud with only a subpoena, which means no screening of a judge is required. This massive vulnerability in private life opens the door to espionage and government in defiance of our Fourth Amendment rights.
The last Congress, much progress has been made to update ECPA to the digital age, but the reform did not come to the function. Congress must act this year to adequately protect the privacy and property of Americans for our rights on the internet will finally be equivalent to the physical world.
We are not the only ones calling for reform of the ECPA. As reported in an article in the Washington Post, 77% of surveyed voters believe "a warrant should be required to access emails, photos and other private communications stored online." In addition, 86% of voters said they believed ECPA should be updated, and 53% expressed that they support a candidate to support "strengthening in online privacy." It is important noted the survey was conducted by a group advocating for the law to be amended, the law is up for debate on December 1. You can read the full article here Washington post, "the government does not often need a warrant to get your emails. But most think it should. "
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