House Democrats Propose Measure to Revamp Electronic Communications Privacy Act

House Judiciary Committee ranking member John Conyers (D-MI) and Constitution Subcommittee ranking member Jerrold Nadler (N-NY) introduced legislation that would revamp a two-decade-old law that deals with law enforcement access to electronic communications, saying its outdated legal protections are hampering the growth of cloud computing and other technologies. The bill would update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to reflect the massive changes in technology since the law was first enacted in 1986. The bill would require law enforcement to obtain a warrant for any wire or electronic communications and set uniform standards and notice rules for when government can obtain such data.