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The U.S. House of Representatives on Monday approved a bill that would update the nation's email surveillance laws so that federal investigators are required to obtain a court-ordered warrant for access to older stored emails. Under the current law, U.S. authorities can legally obtain stored emails older than 180 days using only a subpoena issued by a prosecutor or FBI agent without the approval of a judge.
The House passed by a voice vote The Email Privacy Act (HR 387). The bill amends the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), a 1986 statute that was originally designed to protect Americans from Big Brother and from government overreach. Unfortunately, the law is now so outdated that it actually provides legal cover for the very sort of overreach it was designed to prevent.
Online messaging was something of a novelty when lawmakers were crafting ECPA, which gave email moving over the network essentially the same protection as a phone call or postal letter. In short, it required the government to obtain a court-approved warrant to gain access to that information.
But the U.S. Justice Department wanted different treatment for stored electronic communications. Congress struck a compromise, decreeing that after 180 days email would no longer be protected by the warrant standard and instead would be available to the government with an administrative subpoena and without requiring the approval of a judge.
[...] Activists who've championed ECPA reform for years are cheering the House vote, but some are concerned that the bill may once again get hung up in the Senate. Last year, the House passed the bill in an unanimous 419-0 vote, but the measure stalled in the upper chambers of the Senate.
Source:
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/02/house-passes-long-sought-email-privacy-bill/
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Monday February 13 2017, @09:32AM
It isn't getting passed this time around either, because we all are PTs. Potential Terrorists. And we can't have anything crazy like a warrant to inhibit the police from fishing around in the communications of PTs. Hell, they'll start working on "fixing" access to phone calls soon.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday February 13 2017, @07:48PM
Can they still run stingrays without a warrant? Can they still use whatever they happen to hear while operating the stingray, including non-targeted private conversations?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14 2017, @05:00PM
In 99% of the country, yes, in the remaining 1%, the courts are still debating it and I wouldn't hold my breath about it not going to the remaining 99%.
And to top it all off, if you think you've got constitutional rights (have you actually read the constitution?); guess again: https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone [aclu.org]