Citing cell phone tapping, Leahy calls for privacy hearings

Electronic privacy laws are "woefully outdated" and must be revised in a way that balances Americans' rights with law enforcement agencies' needs, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said Friday.

As the Justice Department heads to court this week to defend its right to tap cell phone locations, Leahy noted many of the laws to be argued before that forum fail to reflect the dawning "Information Age" — a time when new technologies, like BlackBerrys, create both new opportunities to communicate and new privacy challenges. He thus promised as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee to hold a hearing on those rules before the year's end, and he urged his fellow lawmakers to work with him on later revisions to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act — the guiding document on the matter.