Tell The Government That It Needs To Get A Warrant If It Wants To Read Your Email

from the they're-not-getting-the-message dept

Americans are deeply concerned about NSA surveillance.



But the NSA’s not the only problem. An outdated law says the IRS and hundreds of other agencies can read our communications without a warrant.



That law, known as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), was written over 25 years ago, before the services we use today even existed.



Right now, several bills in Congress would fix this by updating ECPA to require a warrant, but regulatory bodies are blocking reform in order to gain new powers of warrantless access.



We call on the Obama Administration to support ECPA reform and to reject any special rules that would force online service providers to disclose our email without a warrant.

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While there's been so much attention lately on the NSA's surveillance tactics and its legality, for years there's been a separate issue that we've been covering: the outdated ECPA (Electronic Communications Privacy Act) rules (written in the '80s) that cover law enforcement's ability to get access to your data, such as emails. The laws make almost no sense today, as they were written in a time when the internet was much more limited. The idea of everyone storing pretty much all of their information and communications online wasn't even a concept at the time -- and that creates bizarre and nonsensical rules, like arguing that emails that have been on a server for more than 180 days are considered "abandoned" and no warrant is needed to view them.There's a simple way to fix all this: reform ECPA to protect private data and say that law enforcementto view that information. This is not a difficult requirement, and yet law enforcement has been fighting hard against it for quite some time. Back in September, we noted that if Congress really wants to protect online privacy, beyond just the NSA stuff a good first start would be comprehensive ECPA reform To that end, someone recently created a "We The People" petition on the White House website asking for ECPA reform, with a key message : the government should get a warrant.While many are (perhaps reasonably) skeptical about the "We the People" petitions, they have been shown to be effective tools in getting the White House to take a position on important issues. And, while the DOJ is against this kind of ECPA reform, that's not to say that others in the White House couldn't be convinced to go the other way if they really believe there are enough people in support of such a program. So, check out the petition and let the White House know that it should fix the law so that if law enforcement wants your data, it needs to get a warrant.

Filed Under: ecpa, ecpa reform, email, petitions, warrants, we the people, white house