Today will see the relaunch of VanishingRights.com, a site that calls on Congress to reform the Electronic Communications Privacy Act – also known as ECPA. CCIA has been engaged in the fight to reform ECPA for many years, and we have worked alongside the organizations behind VanishingRights for much of that time.
ECPA is a quarter-century-old law that allows hundreds of federal entities—including the IRS, FBI, and DEA—as well as state and local agencies to demand access to your old emails and documents stored in the cloud without any judicial oversight.
Vanishing Rights originally launched in support of an ECPA reform bill from Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Mike Lee (R-UT); the Leahy-Lee bill has since passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee with bipartisan support. Now, we’re turning our attention to the House, where an ECPA reform bill has been introduced by Representatives Kevin Yoder (R-KS), Tom Graves (R-GA), and Jared Polis (D-CO). We’re calling on all Representatives to support the House bill, which has already picked up 137 cosponsors.
Now is the time to update ECPA. The public has been shocked by a series of revelations about overbroad government surveillance, particularly by the NSA. ECPA reform won’t solve every surveillance problem, but it is certainly part of the solution. It is bipartisan. It has the wide support of the tech community and advocacy groups across the ideological spectrum. The bill has been through multiple hearings and two committee markups. The time has come to move it forward.
If you agree, you can visit VanishingRights.com and tell your Representatives to support ECPA reform. Tweet it out, and spread the word.