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Electronic Privacy Act Turns 25; No Celebrations!
By siliconindia
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Monday, 24 October 2011, 23:16 IST
An additional argument for updating ECPA is that internet users at present benefit from more privacy rights if they store data locally, a legal hitch that could slow the shift to cloud-based services, if it is changed. It is time to modernize ECPA to grab the technology of today and make sure that privacy keeps velocity with future innovations.
The biggest barrier to altering the ECPA has been opposition from law enforcement agencies. In January, James Baker, an associate Deputy Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice, told the Senate Judiciary Committee, "Congress should refrain from making changes that would impair the government's ability to obtain critical information necessary to build criminal, national security and cyber-investigations, particularly if those changes would not provide any appreciable or meaningful improvement in privacy protection."
For the time being, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and several other activist groups have planned a "Retro Tech Fair" and press conference to call for updating ECPA. The Fair will feature a variety of "high tech" devices from the 1980s. The display includes what were then state-of-the-art cell phones, desktop computers, and other gadgets, and will spotlight just how far technology has advanced since ECPA was originally passed.
