In today’s information driven age Reputation Armor (ReputaitonArmor.com) is aware that the protection of individuals’ digital privacy is vital. Reputation Armor provides a means for individuals to control what is see about them online. But unfortunately, the laws in place that protect the right of privacy of information are old and outdated. For this reason Reputation Armor is excited about the proposed reformation to the Electronic Communications Protection Act.
Reputation Armor notes that an alliance of the internet’s largest online service providers, including Google and Microsoft, are getting together with the top internet rights groups to demand Congress modernize the nation’s privacy laws.
They call themselves the Digital Due Process coalition and among the reformation they are pushing is a requirement that law enforcement get warrants from a judge when they want to compel companies to turn over your e-mails, documents and location data. Reputation Armor has supported this kind of reformation for years.
The coalition declared four principles that are at the heart of their call to reformation in a conference call with reporters March 30th 2010. The group says they’ve briefed the White House, the FBI and Congress on the proposed changes and expect hearings this year. Congress isn’t expected to act before 2011, because of a jam-packed legislative agenda.
With the transformation in technology over the years, Reputation Armor has observed the need to modernize the nation’s electronic privacy law, known as the 1986 Electronic Communications Protection Act.
According to Jim Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology, “With the emergence of location services and the transfer of a huge amount of data to the cloud and our huge reliance on cloud storage of e-mail messages, the law has become outdated and needs to be updated,” Dempsey said in the conference call.
When the law was originally created, e-mail was almost always downloaded from a central server to a user’s computer. Any messages left after 180 days were considered abandoned, so the law allows police to obtain any e-mail older than six months merely by issuing a subpoena - meaning no judge is involved. Reputation Armor (ReputationArmor.com) finds this astonishing and irresponsible. If those e-mails had been downloaded to a user’s computer and removed from the server, the police would need a search warrant, based on probable cause, to get at them.
As Reputation Armor sees it, and according to Dempsey, in an age when Americans store gigabytes of e-mails on Yahoo’s, Google’s and Microsoft’s servers, those different standards make no sense and the law should be platform independent. Reputation Armor agrees.
The following information brought to you by Reputation Armor, can be found @ digitaldueprocess.org.
* Denotes an observations by Reputation Armor
The Principles of the Digital Due Process Coalition
Overarching goal and guiding principle: To simplify, clarify, and unify the ECPA standards, providing stronger privacy protections for communications and associated data in response to changes in technology and new services and usage patterns, while preserving the legal tools necessary for government agencies to enforce the laws, respond to emergency circumstances and protect the public.
These principles would not change, and are subject to, the current definitions, exceptions, immunities and permissions in ECPA.
- A governmental entity may require an entity covered by ECPA (a provider of wire or electronic communication service or a provider of remote computing service) to disclose communications that are not readily accessible to the public only with a search warrant issued based on a showing of probable cause, regardless of the age of the communications, the means or status of their storage or the provider’s access to or use of the communications in its normal business operations.
*Reputation Armor thinks this is a great point. The government would need a warrant to tap a phone in a residence or to read get access to U.S postal mail. Why not email?
- A governmental entity may access, or may require a covered entity to provide, prospectively or retrospectively, location information regarding a mobile communications device only with a warrant issued based on a showing of probable cause.
* Reputation Armor questions how in 2010 the subject of probable cause in relation to the privacy of information is still in question.
- A governmental entity may access, or may require a covered entity to provide, prospectively or in real time, dialed number information, email to and from information or other data currently covered by the authority for pen registers and trap and trace devices only after judicial review and a court finding that the governmental entity has made a showing at least as strong as the showing under 2703(d).
- Where the Stored Communications Act authorizes a subpoena to acquire information, a governmental entity may use such subpoenas only for information related to a specified account(s) or individual(s). All non-particularized requests must be subject to judicial approval.
Reputation Armor and its entire staff are adamant about privacy rights. The Reputation Armor staff also recommends that people become informed about these rights. For more information on this subject visit, www.digitalDueProcess.org.
