Advocates Hope Petraeus Scandal Will Spur Action on ECPA

Privacy advocates said they are hopeful that the attention over e-mails that forced Central Intelligence Agency Director David Petraeus to resign over an extramarital affair will finally push lawmakers to update a two-decade-old law dealing with government access to electronic communications.

During a Capitol Hill briefing on privacy issues, privacy advocates argued that revelations that the Federal Bureau of Investigation uncovered Petraeus’s affair by obtaining access to his personal e-mail shows the need for lawmakers to provide Americans with more protections over their personal electronic communications. A coalition of privacy groups and industry has been pushing lawmakers in recent years to update the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Under current law, law enforcement only needs a subpoena to obtain e-mail that is six months or older.