Sandra from the ACLU writes, “As the scope and depth of the NSA’s spying continues to grow, we cannot forget about similar privacy violations committed by state and local police. The primary law protecting against such violations — The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) — was passed in 1986. Technology has evolved quite a bit since then, as you may have noticed. ECPA, unfortunately, has not, allowing local, state, and federal law enforcement to access our sensitive data in the cloud without a warrant.”
There are currently several bills moving through the U.S. Congress that would update the law to require law enforcement to obtain a warrant before accessing any electronic communications stored on service providers’ servers. Although the bills enjoy wide, bipartisan support, the process has been stalled by several powerful federal agencies interested in expanding their surveillance powers. I hope to get 100,000 signatures on this petition to the Obama Administration to force them to address ECPA reform.
Reform ECPA: Tell the Government to Get a Warrant
(Thanks, Sandra!)