Chairman Leahy Pledges Action On Electronic Communications Privacy Act By End Of Year

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said that by the end of the year he will mark up legislation to update a 25-year old law dealing with law enforcement access to electronic communications.

Leahy's legislation would overhaul the 1986 law he authored known as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. It would require law enforcement to obtain a warrant to get access to all forms of electronic communications and geo-location data. "When I led the effort to write the ECPA 25 years ago, no one could have contemplated the many emerging threats to our digital privacy," Leahy said in a statement one day before the 25th anniversary of ECPA's enactment.