A baby step for privacy?

Bipartisan legislation introduced this week in congress by Representatives Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Ted Poe (R-TX), and Suzan DelBene (D-WA) would require police and federal law enforcement to obtain warrants before reading our emails or tracking our physical locations, barring some exemptions. The bill would reform woefully obsolete electronic communications privacy law in the United States, which was first passed in 1986—before the internet as we know it existed, and before most people had cell phones. Lofgren's bill would even prevent law enforcement form using controversial stingrays to track cell phones unless they got approval from a judge, having showed probable cause. The legislation is a huge step forward.

Under current US federal statutes, law enforcement may be able to obtain our private communications and documents stored in the cloud with a simple subpoena. Subpoenas are simply pieces of paper prosecutors fill out and issue to corporations or individuals, demanding information. No judge approves them or in most cases even sees them. The standard for issuing subpoenas is extremely low. Prosecutors must only believe that the information they seek is relevant to an investigation—a tautology of sorts, given that prosecutors investigate things for a living.

Obviously this federal framework for electronic surveillance makes no sense in 2015. Even the Department of Justice has agreed that a warrant requirement for email surveillance in criminal investigations makes sense. Yet somehow, congress hasn’t been able to get this obvious and important reform over the finish line.