In 1986, there was no World Wide Web and nobody carried a cell phone, but that was the year the statute that protects the privacy of your electronic life—e-mail, search terms, cloud computing, cell-phone location records, postings to Facebook—was passed into law. Today, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), which should safeguard electronic communications records (like your e-mail or chat logs) and the information you share with companies (like Google documents or social networking posts) is in serious need of an update. The ACLU, other civil liberties groups, and major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, and AT&T, have joined together to ask Congress to reform ECPA, with the common belief that law enforcement should have to go to a judge and get a warrant that says it has probable cause to believe you've committed a crime before it can read your e-mail, browse through your social networking account, or track your location. If you don’t act, there won’t be such a thing as private conversations and communications.
Go to DemandYourdotRights.org, a project of the American Civil Liberties Union. |
