The House voted unanimously, 419-0, on Wednesday to bring the law that protects the privacy of Americans’ emails into the 21st century.
The Email Privacy Act would reform the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act by requiring all federal agencies (with few exceptions) to get a warrant before searching old digital communications stored in the cloud by companies like Google and Facebook.
“In 1986, the assumption was that if you left your email on a server it was abandoned, like trash on a street corner,” said Rep. Kevin Yoder, R-Kan., one of the bill’s authors, during a GOP press conference Wednesday morning. He said it “restores the Fourth Amendment, and treats email with the same protections as paper mail.”
Technology companies and privacy advocates alike immediately took to the Twitterverse to celebrate — because the bill would protect innovation in cloud computing just as much as it would protect Fourth Amendment rights.
Now they are urging the Senate to take action.
It's not often the House passes something 419–0 but it just happened on email #privacyreform. On to Senate. https://t.co/gpqBlGAg62 #ECPA
— ACLU (@ACLU) April 27, 2016
Today's unanimous passage of #ECPA reform is a huge victory for Internet users. We urge the Senate to take action: https://t.co/tTdGeDRNwU
— Google Public Policy (@googlepubpolicy) April 27, 2016
Glad to see #HR699, the #EmailPrivacyAct pass, #ECPA was so outdated, when it was written I was using a 512k Mac! pic.twitter.com/zXYCQuyZ5x
— Blake Farenthold (@farenthold) April 27, 2016
https://twitter.com/JakeLaperruque/status/725409308897320960
https://twitter.com/JoeBeOne/status/725408836899749889
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I’M BEN MUESSIG, The Intercept’s editor-in-chief. It’s been a devastating year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
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