Goodlatte Applauds Passage of Bill to Protect the Fourth Amendment in the Digital Age

Press Release

The House of Representatives today approved by a vote of 419-0 the Email Privacy Act (H.R. 699) to protect Americans' privacy and public safety in the digital age.

Nearly 30 years ago, Congress passed the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 to provide a fair balance between the privacy expectations of American citizens and the legitimate needs of law enforcement agencies. The law sets forth a system to protect the privacy rights of customers and subscribers of computer network service providers and governs requests to obtain stored content, records, or other information, which includes stored emails, text or instant messages, documents, videos, or sound recordings stored in the cloud. ECPA applies not only to federal criminal investigations and prosecutions, but to state and local investigations and prosecutions, public safety requests, and civil investigations in which stored communications of these types of information are sought.

There is broad consensus that ECPA is outdated and contains insufficient protections for Americans' privacy. The Email Privacy Act, sponsored by Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.), modernizes ECPA to protect Americans' privacy and provide law enforcement with tools needed for its investigations. It has 314 cosponsors. Below is a statement from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) applauding House passage of the Email Privacy Act.

Chairman Goodlatte: "The U.S. Constitution protects Americans' property from unreasonable searches and seizures and we must ensure that this principle continues to thrive in the digital age. As technology has far-outpaced the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, the Email Privacy Act modernizes this decades-old law to establish a uniform warrant requirement to acquire stored electronic communications in criminal investigations. These updates to the law will better protect Americans' constitutional rights without impeding law enforcement's efforts to protect public safety. With a vast majority of the House supporting this bill, I urge the Senate to take up and pass the bill quickly."

Key Provisions of H.R. 699:

Warrant requirement: The bill creates a uniform warrant standard for law enforcement to obtain the content of communications in criminal investigations. ECPA warrants will continue to be executed with the provider since, as with any other third-party custodian, the information is stored with them. It allows the provider to notify its customers of receipt of a warrant, court order, or subpoena, unless the provider is court ordered to delay such notification.

Remote Computing Services: The bill maintains current law that delineates which remote computing service providers -- or cloud providers -- are subject to the warrant requirement for content in a criminal investigation. ECPA has traditionally imposed heightened legal process and procedures to obtain information for which the customer has a reasonable expectation of privacy, namely emails, texts, photos, videos, and documents stored in the cloud.

Allows Law Enforcement to Access Public Information: ECPA currently makes no distinction between content disclosed to the public, like an advertisement on a website, versus content disclosed only to one or a handful of persons, like an email or text message. The result is that law enforcement would be required to obtain a warrant even for publicly-disclosed content. The bill clarifies that commercial public content can be obtained with a process other than a warrant.

Maintains Congress's investigative power: The bill clarifies that nothing in the law limits Congress's authority to subpoena information from third parties in furtherance of congressional oversight.

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