The US House of representatives passed the Email Privacy Act. Finally the Congress passes a bill that actually protects the public from warrantless search and seizure of email records. What makes this vote special is that it was unanimous – 419-to 0! When does that ever happen? Rarely, but considering this bill would protect our representatives too, maybe not all that surprising.
This bill removes the ability of the police to get email records older than 180 days by subpoena. Now they need a warrant, as it should be under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.
If you want more, including the Bill itself, see the links below. My hope is that this signals a change in the Congress to defend the Constitution as they promise under their Oath of Office. Of course this still has to pass the Senate, so good luck to all of us. Now if we could just get rid of Dianne Feinstein!
More Information:
- HR 699 – Email Privacy Act
- EFF post
- TechDirt
- Naked Security
MAY
About the Author:
I am a cybersecurity and IT instructor, cybersecurity analyst, pen-tester, trainer, and speaker. I am an owner of the WyzCo Group Inc. In addition to consulting on security products and services, I also conduct security audits, compliance audits, vulnerability assessments and penetration tests. I also teach Cybersecurity Awareness Training classes. I work as an information technology and cybersecurity instructor for several training and certification organizations. I have worked in corporate, military, government, and workforce development training environments I am a frequent speaker at professional conferences such as the Minnesota Bloggers Conference, Secure360 Security Conference in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, the (ISC)2 World Congress 2016, and the ISSA International Conference 2017, and many local community organizations, including Chambers of Commerce, SCORE, and several school districts. I have been blogging on cybersecurity since 2006 at http://wyzguyscybersecurity.com