Skip to main content

Bill would require warrants to search email, cell phones

patrick+leahyNow here’s some legislation privacy advocates can get behind: A new bill made public Tuesday by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) would provide a much-needed overhaul of a 25-year-old digital privacy law, and require the government to obtain search warrants to access citizens’ email accounts, cell phones, instant messages, cloud storage services and social networks.

The bill is an update of the Electronic Communication Privacy Act (ECPA), which was also written by Sen. Leahy, and became a law all the way back in 1986. Sen. Leahy’s ECPA Amendments Act of 2011 would also require that, in most cased, the government obtain a search warrant before being able to access real-time cell phone location data from a wireless provider. (The bill provides an exemption for emergency 911 calls.)

Recommended Videos

Sen. Leahy’s bill does away with the so-called “180-day rule,” which allows the government to access citizens’ emails 180 days after they were sent, in most circumstances. In its place would be “one clear legal standard for the protection of the content of emails and other electronic communications,” said Sen. Leahy in a statement.

“Just in the past few weeks, we have witnessed significant data breaches involving Sony and Epsilon that impact the privacy of millions of American consumers,” said Leahy. “We are also learning that smartphones and other new mobile technologies may be using and storing our location and other sensitive information posing other new risks to privacy.

“When I led the effort to write the ECPA 25 years ago, no one could have contemplated these and other emerging threats to our digital privacy.  Updating this law to reflect the realities of our time is essential to ensuring that our Federal privacy laws keep pace with new technologies and the new threats to our security.”

Sen. Leahy’s efforts have been applauded by privacy advocacy group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), who calls the bill “a welcome first step in the process of providing stronger and clearer privacy protections for our Internet communications and location data.”

The EFF warns that, while the legislation is a step in the right direction, it “isn’t absolutely free of problems. The bill “would also and unfortunately preserve the current statutory rule allowing the government to get historical records of your location without probable cause,” writes EFF legislative analyst Kevin Bankston in a blog post. It also expands the government’s authority to use National Security Letters to obtain rich transactional data about who you communicate with online and when, without probable cause or court oversight.”

Still, when we’ve become used to the government doing everything they can to stick their heads further up our digital rear ends, any move in the opposite direction is more than welcomed.

(Image via)

Andrew Couts
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Features Editor for Digital Trends, Andrew Couts covers a wide swath of consumer technology topics, with particular focus on…
Best of Computex 2025 awards: The tech that impressed us the most
Best of Computex 2025

Although Computex 2025 is still far from over, the biggest announcements have already been dropped, and this year's event turned out to be quite exciting. From graphics cards to laptops and monitors, there's plenty of options for a tech enthusiast to dig into, and some -- if not most -- of these new innovations are already available, or will be soon.

Out of all the thrilling new tech that companies such as AMD, Asus, Acer, and MSI announced, what impressed us the most? Below, you'll find the new releases that scored our Best of Computex 2025 award.

Read more
Google IO 2025 summary: 5 big announcements you’ll want to know
Google IO 2025 logo on the surface of the earth

Google IO 2025 delivered us a huge helping of AI during the almost two-hour opening keynote.

Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai, and colleagues got through an awful lot on stage, and while some of the talk was aimed primarily at developers, there were plenty of big announcements for us - the people on the street - to explore.

Read more
How to keep your Apple devices safe from AirPlay attacks
Apple AirPlay streaming to another device.

Apple’s approach to building new features has always been rooted in safety and seamless convenience. Take, for example, AirPlay, a wireless standard created by the company that allows users to stream audio and video from one device to another.

AirPlay works not just across Apple devices, but also on TVs and speakers cleared by the company to offer the wireless streaming facility. That also makes it a ripe target for attacks, and it seems there are, in fact, vulnerabilities in the wireless lanes that could allow bad actors to seed malware and infect more connected devices. 

Read more