New privacy protection measures for emails stored by third-party service providers cleared the House on Monday with support from U.S. Reps. Mike Bishop (R-MI), Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Steve Scalise (R-LA).
The Email Privacy Act, H.R. 387, would amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986 to require law enforcers to obtain a warrant to access emails stored by third-party service providers regardless of how old the email is, or whether it has been opened.
“Most Americans would be shocked to know we currently operate under a 30-year-old internet privacy law — from a time when social media, electronic payments and ‘the cloud’ were far from existence,” Bishop, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said. “Congress has an obligation to ensure our laws meet the growing demands of our increasingly digital world, so I applaud the House for taking this step forward today.”
Bishop added that the Email Privacy Act would strike a balance between safeguarding individual privacy on the internet while providing law enforcers tools to investigate online communications for criminal cases.
Issa said government should be required to obtain a warrant to read an individual’s emails, similar to what is required to read a person’s letters, search their hard drive or listen in on their phone calls.
“Technology has made incredible advances over the years, but the privacy laws for digital communications just haven’t kept pace,” Issa said. “Right now, the rules governing how and when the government can access a person’s emails, photos, documents and other online communications are outdated and do not provide for the same Fourth Amendment protections given to on-paper or in-person communications. The bill we’ve passed today is an important privacy safeguard that will help cement Americans’ rights in the digital age.”
Under the bill, courts also would be authorized to require a date for return of service of a warrant.
The same legislation was unanimously approved by the House last April. At that time, House Majority Whip Scalise noted IRS protocol states the Fourth Amendment does not protect electronically stored communications because there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in those situations.
“The IRS has made it clear that they don’t believe that American citizens have a Fourth Amendment protection of privacy for their email communications,” Scalise said. “The IRS has gone further and is actually reading emails of American Citizens. No one across the country knows about it unless the IRS finds something that then they are going to go after you criminally on.”
Enactment of the Email Privacy Act would ensure that American citizens have “real protections — privacy protections that they deserve and think they have,” Scalise added.