[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Page 16220]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS PRIVACY ACT 27TH ANNIVERSARY

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act 
ECPA, one of the Nation's premiere digital privacy laws, was enacted 27 
years ago on October 21. I join the many privacy advocates, technology 
organizations, legal scholars and other Americans who celebrate this 
milestone and all that ECPA has come to symbolize about the importance 
of safeguarding our privacy rights in cyberspace.
  When I introduced ECPA with former Republican Senator Charles Mathias 
in 1986, I said that ``the privacy protections in ECPA are designed to 
protect legitimate law enforcement needs while minimizing intrusions on 
the privacy of system users as well as the business needs of electronic 
communications system providers.'' During the last three decades, ECPA 
has become the premier law for protecting Americans from unauthorized 
government intrusions into their private electronic communications.
  When Congress enacted ECPA, email was a novelty and no one imagined 
how prevalent it would become in our daily communication let alone how 
long it might be stored. But after almost three decades, new 
technologies--such as the Internet, social networking sites and cloud 
computing--have changed how Americans use and store email. Storing 
documents and other information electronically has become much less 
expensive and mobile technologies permit users to access stored 
documents wherever and whenever they choose. As a result, the digital 
privacy protections put in place 27 years ago have not kept pace with 
new technologies.
  That is why Congress must revitalize the digital privacy protections 
that were enacted in ECPA. That is also why I am working in a 
bipartisan manner to update this law to reflect the realities of our 
time.
  In April, the Judiciary Committee favorably reported bipartisan 
legislation that I authored with Republican Senator Mike Lee to update 
ECPA and to bring this law fully into the digital age. Our bipartisan 
bill updates ECPA to require that the government obtain a search 
warrant--based upon probable cause--before obtaining the content of our 
emails and other electronic communications. The commonsense reforms in 
our bill carefully balance the interests and needs of consumers, the 
law enforcement community, and our Nation's thriving technology sector. 
The bill enjoys the support of a diverse coalition of more than 100 
privacy, civil liberties, civil rights and technology organizations 
from across the political spectrum, including the American Civil 
Liberties Union, the Heritage Foundation, the Center for Democracy and 
Technology and Americans for Tax Reform. The bill is also the product 
of careful consultation with many government and private sector 
stakeholders, including the Departments of Justice, Commerce and State, 
local law enforcement, and members of the technology and privacy 
communities. I remain disappointed that a single Republican Senator has 
objected to the unanimous consent request to pass this bipartisan bill, 
which overwhelmingly passed the Judiciary Committee.
  The privacy reforms in this bill are too important to delay. Like 
Senator Lee and me, all of the bill's supporters understand that 
protecting our digital privacy rights is not a Democratic ideal, nor a 
Republican ideal, but an American ideal that all of us should embrace. 
As ECPA reaches another milestone, it is important to remember that 
Americans continue to face threats to their digital privacy. I hope 
that all Senators will join me in supporting the Electronic 
Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act and that the Senate will pass 
this bill without delay.

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