Published: January 2015

The FBI doesn’t need a warrant to read your email – it should

Coalition: Digital Due Process

Although originally enacted in 1986 to protect consumers, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) no longer reflects the nations’ reasonable expectations of privacy. The ECPA reform bill prevents the collection digital data without a warrant and has growing support from privacy advocate groups, including Consumer Action, and giant tech leaders alike.

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) would update 1986’s ECPA in one major way: requiring law enforcement to obtain a warrant before demanding a service provider (like Google or Facebook) disclose the content of a consumer's emails, social media accounts, texts or other private communication. The Warrant—for—Content rule, the existing procedure currently followed by the FBI and the Department of Justice, would implement a new standard that would provide greater consumer privacy protections and create a more level playing field for technology companies. 

 

Other Organizations

ACT | The App Association | Adobe | Amazon | American Association of Law Libraries | American Booksellers for Free Expression | American Civil Liberties Union | American Library Association | Americans for Tax Reform and Digital Liberty | AOL | Association of Research Libraries | Automattic | Autonet Mobile | Brennan Center for Justice | BSA | The Software Alliance | Center for Financial Privacy and Human Rights | Center for Democracy & Technology | Cisco | Competitive Enterprise Institute | Computer & Communications Industry Association | Consumer Action | Council for Citizens Against Government Waste Data Foundry-­‐Golden Frog | Deluxe Corporation | Demand Progress | Direct Marketing Association | Discovery Institute | Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA) | Dropbox | eBay | Electronic Frontier Foundation | Engine | Evernote | Facebook | First Amendment Coalition | Foursquare | FreedomWorks | Future of Privacy Forum | Gen Opp | Google | Hewlett-­‐Packard | Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) | Internet Association | Internet Infrastructure Coalition (I2Coalition) | Intuit | Less Government | Liberty Coalition | LinkedIn | NetChoice | New America's Open Technology Institute | Newspaper Association of America | Oracle | Personal | R Street | ServInt | SIIA: Software & Information Industry Association | Snapchat | Sonic | Taxpayers Protection Alliance | TechFreedom | TechNet | The Center for National Security Studies | The Constitution Project | The Federation of Genealogical Societies | Tumblr | Twitter | U.S. Chamber of Commerce | Venture Politics | Yahoo

More Information

For more information visit Digital Due Process.

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The FBI doesn’t need a warrant to read your email – it should   (ECPAsupportletter.pdf)