There is a movement in Congress – both houses – to try to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, passed in 1986, which is the most significant law protecting our digital communications. Of course, a lot has changed since 1986, but it is still the law that controls how the government can get hold of your private communications that are stored in “the cloud” — emails, drafts of documents, calendars, medical records, financial records. Right now, the government says it can obtain this stored information, just because it is stored with a third party, without a warrant, instead of just with a subpoena from a prosecutor alone, without a judge.
Back in 1986, Congress had not anticipated the whole storage element concept. In fact, in 1986, email service providers would delete any email that was more than 30 or 60 days old. Congress saw any email stored for more than 180 days as abandoned. They assumed if the email was really important, you’d print it out and put it in your files. Of course, now each of us has years and years of emails stored online.
So now, the privacy movement is seeking a very simple standard, grounded in the U.S. Constitution. Basically it is: If you want my stuff, get a warrant. This movement definitely bears watching, but bottom line: the truth is that everything you (and your kids) do can be tracked.
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