Three members of Congress, including Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), introduced new legislation on Wednesday to reform the Electronic Communications Protection Act (ECPA) and improve privacy protections for electronic messages.

The new bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) and Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), is called the Online Communications and Geolocation Protection Act. As drafted, the bill would extend Fourth Amendment protections to email and cellphone geolocation data, requiring authorities to get a warrant in situations where one is currently not required.

Lofgren had introduced a similar bill last year and previously promised to reintroduce it as part of her "Internet freedom" agenda.

"Fourth Amendment protections don’t stop at the Internet," Lofgren said in a press release. "Americans expect constitutional protections to extend to their online communications and location data. Establishing a warrant standard for government access to cloud and geolocation provides Americans with the privacy protections they expect, and would enable service providers to foster greater trust with their users and international trading partners."

If the bill passes, police will always need to go to a judge before going to a service provider for access to a user's content data — except in some emergency or national security situations.

The bill constitutes yet another push after a few failed attempts by lawmakers to finally update a law that was passed in 1986 and which many observers argue is in need of reform.

SEE ALSO: Here's What Google Does When the Government Wants Your Emails

Currently, under the ECPA, law enforcement agencies can access online content that's been stored in a server for more than 180 days with just a subpoena, which doesn't require a judge's signature. However, recent court decisions have interpreted the law to require a warrant and major email providers such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft already say they require a warrant to hand over sensitive data to police. Still, the current legal situation is confusing and Lofgren's bill would purportedly add legal clarity.

"This bill would basically normalize everything, and create a uniform standard: content equals warrant, period," said Hanni Fakhoury, an attorney at the civil right advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Doesn't matter if it's opened or unopened, doesn't matter if it's 180 days or 181 days."

The bill would also require the police to get a warrant to access somebody's mobile geolocation data. Currently, that data is accessible with a simple subpoena because law enforcement agencies have long argued users surrender this kind of information to third parties — phone companies, ISPs, Google, et cetera — when using their phones. Police use geolocation data to track cellphone users via cell towers.

Fakhoury, like other privacy activists, is happy with the bill, which he sees as a first step in the right direction. Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for privacy-related issues at the American Civil Liberties Union, feels much the same way as Fakhoury.

If this reform bill passes, Calabese told Mashable, "Law enforcement will need to follow the same rules to access your [email] inbox, or track you using your cellphone as they would to search your house."

The bill also prevents prosecutors from submitting illegally-obtained geolocation as evidence in court. However, that doesn't apply to content information, which is the only qualm Fakhoury has with this new legislation. Both Fakhoury and Calabrese expect the law-enforcement lobby to push back against the legislation — probably by arguing that it hinders law enforcement's ability to conduct investigations — but they are optimistic about the chances of this bill to pass.

Image via Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call