House of Representatives Votes to Provide Increased Privacy Protection to Emails

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed the Email Privacy Act (H.R. 699), which would require the government to get a probable cause warrant from a judge before obtaining private communications and documents stored online with companies such as Google, Facebook, and Dropbox.

The bill provides a long overdue update to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), first passed in 1986. The bill also codifies the ruling in U.S. v. Warshak, where the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals  ruled that the government must have a search warrant before it can secretly seize and search emails stored by email service providers.

Contact your Senators to pass this bill!