Thursday, April 28, 2016

The public wants privacy

How do we know?  Congress knows:
In a rare display of bipartisanship the US House of Representatives has passed the Email Privacy Act(EPA) in a 419-0 vote. 
The legislation updates the antiquated 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) and closes an important privacy loophole. Under ECPA the police could examine any email that had been read or that was more than 180 days old with only a subpoena, whereas under the EPA they would need a warrant obtained from a judge.
Is this a fig leaf?  Probably.  Will this change much?  Unlikely.

But Congress knows that people are unhappy with police snooping.  They know it to the degree that not a single vote was cast against this.

What hath NSA wrought ...

3 comments:

Old NFO said...

Figleaf, that's withering on the vine even as we speak!

Borepatch said...

Yes, but Congress thinks that the issue is hot enough that they voted unanimously for it. That's an interesting data point.

matism said...

I have no doubt that "Law Enforcement" will comply with this law. If it makes it past the Muslim in Chief, of course. After all, "Law Enforcement" surely would NEVER violate a law and then lie about it...