Data Foundry and the i2Coalition Applaud Texas Email Privacy Bill

The following is a guest post from Ron Yokubaitis of Data Foundry.

Last week, Texas Governor Rick Perry signed into law HB 2268, the nation’s strongest email privacy bill.  This bill provides much stronger privacy protections than exist with the current federal law, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA).

Looking at the name of the federal law, you see one of the glaring problems it presents – it was written in 1986, well before the majority of our electronic communications that exist today were around.  Technology has advanced dramatically since 1986.

As a founding member of the Internet Infrastructure Coalition (i2Coalition), Data Foundry has been pleased to participate in the coalition’s leadership in driving discussions to reform ECPA at the federal level.  ECPA must be revised to better reflect the evolution of electronic communications.  Most important is the need for a warrant requirement for all government searches of email and other electronic communications, to add consistency to privacy protections.  The fourth amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring a warrant supported by probable cause, and ECPA should ensure that constitutional guarantees of due process are upheld.

Data Foundry and the i2Coalition applaud Governor Perry and the Texas legislature for taking the lead on online privacy protection, and we call on Washington to do the same.  The reality of modern technology versus antiquated laws demands it.  ECPA reform needs to be addressed now.