Email Privacy Act Comes Back, Hopefully to Stay

[steven36]

The Email Privacy Act is back. We hope it can stay.

 

 

The House of Representatives passed a bill this week called the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which authorizes the nation’s military and defense programs. Earlier in the week, scores of Representatives offered amendments to this must-pass bill in hopes of ensuring that their ideas get a chance to become law.

 

Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-KS) used this opportunity to include as an amendment the Email Privacy Act, a piece of legislation long-favored by EFF. The Email Privacy Act would codify the rule announced by the Sixth Circuit—and now followed by providers nationwide—that requires government agents to first obtain a probable cause warrant when seeking the content of communications stored by companies like Google, Facebook, Slack, Dropbox, and Microsoft.

 

On Thursday night, the House approved the NDAA–including the amendment with the Email Privacy Act—in a 351-66 vote. We applaud the House’s inclusion of this important statutory language in the must-pass NDAA.

 

Rep. Yoder’s amendment, which you can read here, is identical to the Email Privacy Act (H.R. 387) that EFF supported in 2017. The amendment is also a revival of the Email Privacy Act (H.R. 699) that EFF likewise supported in 2016. That bill received unanimous support from the House of Representatives in a 419-0 vote.

 

This is a battle we’ve fought for years. Rep. Yoder’s amendment is the latest chance for Congress to get it right.

 

Today, when government agents seek electronic communications from companies and service providers, they don’t actually follow the rules set forth in the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act. While the text of that law splinters warrant protections according to an arbitrary time restriction (emails older than 180 days have no warrant requirement protections; emails newer than 180 days sometimes do) since the Sixth Circuit’s decision in Warshak, providers have required a full search warrant for all email content.

 

The Email Privacy Act harmonizes the statute with the case law. It provides warrant protections to all emails, chats, and online traded messages sought by government agents from service providers. If any law enforcement agent asks Google, Facebook, Dropbox, Apple, or any other major electronic message handler or cloud service provider for a person’s emails, they first need to obtain a probable cause warrant.

 

EFF is excited to see the Email Privacy Act pass the House of Representatives again. In the past, Senate Republicans have been extremely resistant to the Email Privacy Act in any form, attaching poison pill amendments to derail prior roads to success. The Senate is currently working on their own version of the NDAA, and EFF will be working to ensure that the Email Privacy Act is included without poison pills in the bill that goes to the President.

 

As we said before, the emails in your inbox should have the same privacy protections as the papers in your desk.

 

Source: The EFF

[Togijak]

1 hour ago, steven36 said:

The Email Privacy Act harmonizes the statute with the case law. It provides warrant protections to all emails, chats, and online traded messages sought by government agents from service providers. If any law enforcement agent asks Google, Facebook, Dropbox, Apple, or any other major electronic message handler or cloud service provider for a person’s emails, they first need to obtain a probable cause warrant.

 

Sounds like USA is back on a way to respect privacy (and the Bavarian (part of Germany) police law does exactly the opposite at the moment )

[straycat19]

Doesn't make any difference if it is passed or not.  There is still, and always will be, a way around getting a search warrant or subpoena.  I have mentioned it before, it is called exigent circumstances.  What that means is an agent/officer just needs to call the responsible person at the organization they want information from, identify himself and state that they need such and such data due to exigent circumstances and it is provided.  Exigent circumstances usually means there has been some type of threat to a person or the public and there isn't time to go through the warrant process in order to prevent the incident from happening.  So all that needs to be said is that someone is suspected of terrorist activities that could result in an imminent danger to the public or someone's death is imminent due to a post or email, etc.  No proof is needed, it is strictly done on the word of the officer/agent placing the call.

[steven36]

2 hours ago, straycat19 said:

Doesn't make any difference if it is passed or not.  There is still, and always will be, a way around getting a search warrant or subpoena.  I have mentioned it before, it is called exigent circumstances.  What that means is an agent/officer just needs to call the responsible person at the organization they want information from, identify himself and state that they need such and such data due to exigent circumstances and it is provided.  Exigent circumstances usually means there has been some type of threat to a person or the public and there isn't time to go through the warrant process in order to prevent the incident from happening.  So all that needs to be said is that someone is suspected of terrorist activities that could result in an imminent danger to the public or someone's death is imminent due to a post or email, etc.  No proof is needed, it is strictly done on the word of the officer/agent placing the call.

 

Quote

Exigent circumstances are exceptions to the general requirement of a warrant under the Fourth Amendment searches and seizures. 

In Missouri v. McNeely (2013), the Supreme Court clarified, "A variety of circumstances may give rise to an exigency sufficient to justify a warrantless search, including law enforcement's need to provide emergency assistance to an occupant of a home . . . engage in “hot pursuit” of a fleeing suspect . . . or enter a burning building to put out a fire and investigate its cause."

Courts will typically look at the time when the officer makes the warrantless search or seizure to evaluate whether at that point in time a reasonable officer at the scene would believe it is urgent to act and impractical to secure a warrant. Courts may also consider whether the facts suggested that the suspect was armed and planning to escape, whether a reasonable police officer would believe his safety or others’ safety was threatened, and whether there was a serious crime involved.

Exigent circumstances may also occur when the police is in hot pursuit of a suspect who is possibly involved in criminal activities and in the process of fleeing.

 

This only applies in certain cases it dont apply to emails ,  it only applies if they are after someone  and they run , they have the right to enter places to catch them because they are a fugitive from justice or if there is a fire they can enter a place to put it out , and If someones life is in danger they have the right to enter the building to save people .. They still will have to go to court and explain why they did it and if they do it outside the law it would blow there whole case. It most  cases when  they used exigent circumstances it involved  a drug raid to keep people from getting rid of the drugs before they could get a warrant  most of the time the cops  have been watching the suspects a long time and already know they have drugs if they was to use this on a person that didn't do nothing they would be in serious trouble.. If they see drug activity they have a right to search you without a warrant it happens in most drug raids when they see someone selling drugs. . I been searched before without them showing me a warrant  but i didn't have nothing but others there on the scene did and they knew it so that gave them probable cause to search us all .      

 

Exigent circumstances is nothing new .Exigent circumstances does not give the Government the right to read you're emails without a warrant were  they can get one when investigating  it's only to be used in a extreme emergency were they don't have time to get a warrant.  They been trying to get emails from Ireland from Microsoft for years  and it been years and years of court battles even with a  warrant because its not stored on USA servers.  get with reality . In all my life never have a cop searched my home with or without a warrant because they have no cause and we should have the  same privacy  with our emails when we done nothing wrong.