While we argue about how to best curtail the NSA, and precisely what constitutes meaningful reform, a gaping privacy hole remains open regarding our email: The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986 allows for email that has been stored by a user for more than 180 days to be accessed without a warrant.
No, this issue still isn’t resolved. A new poll shows broad support for reform, unsurprisingly. Polling by Vox Populi Polling shows that in five states, including Georgia, Colorado and New Hampshire, as well as the city of Los Angeles, more than 80 percent in each support changing the law.
That’s a huge margin across ideologically distinct areas.
Sixty-four percent think that the issue of digital privacy is “increasingly important” following the now year-long saga of NSA revelations, and 72 percent indicated that they would be more willing to vote for a candidate who supports reforming the ECPA.
There is a lot of ground to cover when it comes to better overseeing the NSA and its brethren. Patching the ECPA so that email is given the same basic protection as other private correspondence is just common sense.
The poll was sponsored by Digital 4th coalition, which is pushing for the adoption of legal measures to reform the ECPA.
IMAGE BY FLICKR USER Benjamin Chan UNDER CC BY-SA 2.0 LICENSE (IMAGE HAS BEEN CROPPED)