| Appendix (Updating the Law Governing the Privacy of Electronic Communications) |
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I. Jurisdiction A. Congress: Congress has the authority to enact legislation necessary to update ECPA. The Judiciary committees in both the House and Senate have authority over any such legislation. B. Executive Branch: The Department of Justice, and within DOJ, the FBI, are the executive branch agencies that would be most effected by changes in ECPA. II. Status of Actions in Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branches A. Legislative: 1. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act was signed into law on Oct. 21, 1986 as Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act (P.L. 99-508). ECPA has been amended several times. Most recently, ECPA was amended, and its privacy protections weakened, by the USA PATRIOT Act (P.L. 107-56), enacted on Oct. 26, 2001. It was again amended by the USA PATRIOT Act Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-177), which was enacted on March 9, 2006. Finally, it was again amended by the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (P.L. 110-261), which was enacted on July 10, 2008. 2. A number of bills have been introduced to update ECPA to set or to adjust standards for location information, stored email, and pen registers and trap and trace devices. The leading bills, both from the 106th Congress, were: a. Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 2000 (H.R. 5018, 106th Congress) – Introduced by Rep. Charles Canady (R-FL); Referred to House Committee on the Judiciary where it passed 20-1 on Oct. 4, 2000; no action on House floor. b. Electronic Rights for the 21st Century Act (S. 854, 106th Congress) – Introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT); Referred to Senate Committee on the Judiciary; no action 3. In addition, the E-mail Privacy Act of 2005 (S. 936, 109th Congress) was introduced in response to the U.S. v. Councilman litigation to clarify the definition of "intercept" to mean the aural or other acquisition of the contents of any wire, electronic, or oral communication contemporaneous with transit, or on an ongoing basis during transit, through the use of any electronic, mechanical, or other device or process, notwithstanding that the communication may simultaneously be in electronic storage (thus covering e-mail communications) – Introduced by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and John Sununu (R-NH); Referred to Senate Committee on the Judiciary; no action. B. Executive The Department of Justice published a 2002 manual on seizing computers and obtaining electronic evidence of crime: http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/s&smanual2002.htm C. Judicial 1. Key location information cases: a. Magistrate Judge Smith’s decision, In re Application for Pen Register & Trap/Trace Device with Cell Site Location Auth., 396 F. Supp. 2d 747 (S.D. Tex., 2005) (supporting use of probable cause standard) b. Judge Lenihan’s decision, In re the Application of the United States of America for an Order Directing a Provider of Electronic Commc’n Serv. to Disclose Records to the Gov’t, 534 F. Supp. 2d 585 (W.D. Pa., 2008) (most recent published federal case supporting MJ Smith’s decision and use of probable cause standard) 2. Key stored e-mail cases: a. Theofel v. Farey-Jones, 359 F.3d 1066 (9th Cir. 2004) (holding that e-mail messages are in storage for purposes of the Stored Communications Act even if they have already been delivered to the account holder) b. Warshak v. U.S., 490 F.3d 455 (6th Cir. 2006) (upholding district court’s decision that reasonable expectation of privacy triggered probable cause requirement; later vacated on ripeness grounds, 532 F.3d 521 (6th Cir. 2008)
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