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posted by martyb on Monday February 13 2017, @09:16AM   Printer-friendly
from the crossing-fingers dept.

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 Unfortunately, the law is now so outdated that it actually provides legal cover for the very sort of overreach it was designed to prevent.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/


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  • (Score: 2) by MadTinfoilHatter on Monday February 13 2017, @12:46PM

    by MadTinfoilHatter (4635) on Monday February 13 2017, @12:46PM (#466553)

    Why the hell is there a limit?

    Because back in 1986 it would have been antisocial to leave your mail on the server for 6 months without downloading them. IMAP and gigabytes worth of storage wasn't a thing yet, so it was deemed that after 180 days it becomes part of a public record, because obviously nobody cares about the mail in question. Classical case of technology outrunning legislation...

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Monday February 13 2017, @01:02PM

    by Nerdfest (80) on Monday February 13 2017, @01:02PM (#466560)

    As I've stated many times before, I'm of the opinion that it should be a serious crime for any company to release *any* information regarding an individual without a warrant. This is a classic case of law enforcement overstepping their bounds.

    • (Score: 2) by MadTinfoilHatter on Tuesday February 14 2017, @05:52AM

      by MadTinfoilHatter (4635) on Tuesday February 14 2017, @05:52AM (#466870)

      I'm not saying I disagree with you. I just pointed out why the limit may have seemed (somewhat) reasonable in 1986.