SALON

Tuesday, Mar 19, 2013 7:48 PM UTC

How not to update our electronic privacy laws

The Justice Department wants to snoop into your Facebook page, but isn't doing a very good job explaining why

By

Topics: Privacy, online privacy, ecpa, ,

How not to update our electronic privacy lawsFacebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (Credit: AP/Eric Risberg)

Judging by reports from courtside, the Department of Justice did itself no favors at a House Judiciary Committee hearing held Tuesday morning to discuss how to update the venerable-to-the-point-of-senile Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

ECPA was originally enacted into law in 1986, when Mark Zuckerberg was 1 year old. Just about everybody agrees — law enforcement, Congress, the White House, civil libertarians, tech companies — that the law needs to catch up with contemporary practice. But the exact details of said updating? That’s where it gets tricky.

In prepared testimony Assistant Attorney General Elana Tyrangiel acknowledged that there were cases in which the government should be required to get a warrant before accessing the content of, for example, stored emails. But at the same time she pushed for wide exceptions to that rule for civil litigators, opening up the possibility that if the law were updated per the DoJ’s wishes, regulatory authorities and civil litigators would be able to gain more access than ever to your emails, Twitter direct messages, and Facebook communications without ever having to go before a judge. (Zach Whittaker has a nice rundown of the DoJ’s overreaching in ZDNET.)

The House Judiciary Committee is chaired by Jim Sensenbrenner, a conservative Republican unlikely to ever give any Obama administration representative the benefit of the doubt. But the issue of privacy is one of the few domains in which bipartisan agreement is possible. However, as far as I could tell from the live-tweeting of the hearing provided by EFF, Tyrangiel did little to make the government’s case for greater snooping powers.

Not trying to be unfair here, but according to EFF’s account, all the other panelists called to testify gave reasonably substantive answers supporting their positions. The Department of Justice did not. Maybe that’s understandable, considering that Obama has pledged support for a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, while his own Justice Department seeks greater access than ever to our online communications.

Andrew Leonard

Andrew Leonard is a staff writer at Salon. On Twitter, @koxinga21. More Andrew Leonard.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • This photo. President Barack Obama has a laugh during the unveiling of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Tx., Thursday. Former first lady Barbara Bush, who candidly admitted this week we've had enough Bushes in the White House, is unamused.
    Reuters/Jason Reed

  • Rescue workers converge Wednesday in Savar, Bangladesh, where the collapse of a garment building killed more than 300. Factory owners had ignored police orders to vacate the work site the day before.
    AP/A.M. Ahad

  • Police gather Wednesday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to honor campus officer Sean Collier, who was allegedly killed in a shootout with the Boston Marathon bombing suspects last week.
    AP/Elise Amendola

  • Police tape closes the site of a car bomb that targeted the French embassy in Libya Tuesday. The explosion wounded two French guards and caused extensive damage to Tripoli's upscale al-Andalus neighborhood.
    AP/Abdul Majeed Forjani

  • Protestors rage outside the residence of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday following the rape of a 5-year-old girl in New Delhi. The girl was allegedly kidnapped and tortured before being abandoned in a locked room for two days.
    AP/Manish Swarup

  • Clarksville, Mo., residents sit in a life boat Monday after a Mississippi River flooding, the 13th worst on record.
    AP/Jeff Roberson

  • Workers pause Wednesday for a memorial service at the site of the West, Tx., fertilizer plant explosion, which killed 14 people and left a crater more than 90 feet wide.
    AP/The San Antonio Express-News, Tom Reel

  • Aerial footage of the devastation following a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in China's Sichuan province last Saturday. At least 180 people were killed and as many as 11,000 injured in the quake.
    AP/Liu Yinghua

  • On Wednesday, Hazmat-suited federal authorities search a martial arts studio in Tupelo, Miss., once operated by Everett Dutschke, the newest lead in the increasingly twisty ricin case. Last week, President Barack Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker, R.-Miss., and a Mississippi judge were each sent letters laced with the deadly poison.
    AP/Rogelio V. Solis

  • The lighting of Freedom Hall at the George W. Bush Presidential Center Thursday is celebrated with (what else but) red, white and blue fireworks.
    AP/David J. Phillip

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 4 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username - log out

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Would we give up burgers to stop climate change? New study suggests if we reduce our intake of animal products by 25%, we can halt climate change
437 points438 points | 148 comments
vote
Facebook has been used to find ex-lovers, childhood BFFs or the one who got away. He used it to find the guy who, without his consent, made him his drug mule.
225 points226 points | 21 comments
vote
“This could be a career ender for Michele Bachmann”
137 points138 points | 54 comments
vote
Poll: 3 in 10 voters say “armed revolution might be necessary” - 29% say they believe they'll have to act "in order to protect our liberties" in the next few years
44 points45 points | 16 comments
vote
Capitalism, not feminism, killed home cooking–and fixing our broken food system is gonna take a lot more than some privileged women embracing “new domesticity”
31 points32 points | 19 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: "The Shelter Cycle": Raised in a cult

Recommendations