[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15822-15823]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  WE SHOULD PASS THE EMAIL PRIVACY ACT

  (Mr. YODER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. YODER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in defense of the Constitution. 
I rise today to stand for the Fourth Amendment and the right against 
unreasonable searches and seizures without probable cause.
  The Email Privacy Act, the House's most cosponsored bill to not have 
a vote, this week got its 300th cosponsor. My friend from New York, Lee 
Zeldin, became the latest Member of Congress to join this bipartisan 
legislation.

[[Page 15823]]

  With a majority of Republicans and a majority of Democrats now 
supporting this bill, this is a bill whose time has come. Americans who 
use digital communication in texts, emails, and social media are being 
governed by a 1986 law, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 
which was written long before the Internet, as we understand it today, 
existed.
  Americans overwhelmingly agree that our email should have the same 
Fourth Amendment protections as our paper documents. We should require 
a warrant to read the content of Americans' emails, and we should pass 
the Email Privacy Act, H.R. 699.
  With 300 cosponsors and growing, it is time to act. It is time to 
show the American people that Congress will protect them and defend the 
Constitution.

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