The Hill reports that the House Judiciary Committee will begin a series of hearings on privacy on Tuesday. The committee will examine proposals to update the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (“ECPA,” also known as Title 18 § 2511 of the United States Code). The Hill reports:

The House Judiciary Committee will hold the first in a series of hearings on Tuesday morning to consider whether to expand privacy protections for emails and other forms of electronic communication. [...]

Under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, police only need a subpoena, issued without a judge’s approval, to read emails that have been opened or that are more than 180 days old. Privacy advocates argue the law is woefully out of date and that police should need a warrant to access emails and other private messages.

Revising the law to protect all electronic communications, regardless of how old they are, is a top goal for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said earlier this month that modernizing the privacy act to “reflect our current digital economy” will be a priority for his committee. Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Ted Poe (R-Texas) and Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) have introduced legislation that would require police to obtain a warrant before accessing private online communications or mobile location data.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 18th, 2013 and is filed under Anonymity, Civil liberties, Fourth Amendment, Identification, Security, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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