In general, the government should be required to obtain a warrant in order to access the private password protected digital accounts of its citizens. Unfortunately, due to an outdated law, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA) this is not the case.
The ubiquitous nature of online communications has made updating the law to account for how technology has changed over the past 30 years a necessity to ensure that our 4th amendment rights in the virtual world equal our 4th amendment rights in the physical world. A Congressional hearing on the Email Privacy Act will be held this week to try to update the woefully out of date ECPA statute. Multiple efforts over the years have failed so I am cautiously optimistic that this effort and others such as the LEADS Act which complement this bill will be passed this term.
The Email Privacy Act has more than 300 cosponsors in the House of Representatives and it would close a glaring loophole in ECPA which enables the government to utilize a subpoena instead of a warrant to require digital service providers to provide their customer's digital communications if they are greater than 180 days old. When ECPA was enacted in 1986, this loophole wasn't concerning because our technology wasn't such that we could hold years of personal communications in an email account stored in the cloud around the world.
According to a recent poll by Vox Populi, 77% of 1000 registered voters said "a warrant should be required to access emails, photos and other private communications stored online." This super majority demonstrates the importance of this issue and that Congress should listen to the voters to rectify this glaring hole in our 4th amendment protections.
In order for the Email Privacy Act to became law, it is imperative to contact your local members of Congress to tell them about the importance of this issue. Absent public support, Congress doesn't act. Therefore, if you believe that our 4th amendment protections should extend to our digital activities please take a stand and urge your representatives and senators to support the much needed Email Privacy Act.
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