Email privacy loophole has an easy fix

The privacy of Iowans' emails, texts, and similar online messages are protected by an outdated law. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act was passed in 1986. It was intended to define Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure for communications on the Internet by restricting government's right to access private emails to only those older than 180 days.

The act's authors didn't imagine people would have a reason or the means to store email longer than 180 days. Relatively few people used email in 1986, and those who did rarely kept them after sending or receiving them. The Web didn't even exist. Neither did cloud computing, social media or smartphones.

Fast forward to 2015, where we keep emails indefinitely, including our private communications, financial records, schedules, thoughts, love letters and family photos. The law has not been revised to reflect that reality.

The government cannot tap our phones, read our mail or search our homes or offices without a warrant supported by probable cause to believe a crime is being committed. But government agents can access anything we store with service providers or in the cloud for more than 180 days without a warrant. Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) have created bipartisan legislation to stop it.

Their reforms constitute a long overdue correction to law that will ensure our privacy remains intact as technology continues to advance. The bill would require government agencies to go before a judge and obtain a search warrant before gaining access to private communications and records, just as they would were those records stored in an office file cabinet.

The Leahy-Lee bill has strong bipartisan support in Congress. It was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee early in the last Congress. It is supported by a broad coalition. Almost everyone familiar with the issue is confident we can restore Americans' right to privacy without compromising government's ability to enforce laws, regulations, and investigate criminal activity.

The Senate should call up and vote on the Leahy-Lee legislation early in the new Congress. As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Iowa's Senator Chuck Grassley can be important to ensuring that Iowans are secure in our constitutional rights. By doing so, Iowa startup and existing businesses can innovate and grow without fearing government intrusions into their private lives or those of their customers.

' Joshua McNary is a marketing technologist, an organizer for Startup Weekend Cedar Rapids/Iowa City and council member for Cedar Rapids' Vault Coworking & Collaboration Space. Comments: (319) 849-8499; mcnary.me/contact