Greater email privacy won't hinder law enforcement

FILE - This May 16, 2012 file photo shows Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. gesturing during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. Over objections from law enforcement officials, the Senate Judiciary Committee has approved legislation that would require police to obtain a search warrant from a judge before they can review a person's emails or other electronic communications. Leahy, the committee chairman and the bill's sponsor, said digital files on a computer should have the same safeguards as paper files stored in a home. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

By By RICHARD LARDNER

Associated Press / November 29, 2012

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Police also can use a judicial order to get the ‘‘to’’ and ‘‘from’’ addresses of an email, but not the contents. These orders must be issued by a judge, but the agency seeking one need only show there is reasonable suspicion of a crime — a lower legal standard than probable cause.

In a Nov. 21 letter to Leahy, 30 former federal and state prosecutors and judges said the bill would provide ‘‘a much needed judicial check on when the government can access our private digital information.’’ Concerns that the bill would keep law enforcement from acting quickly during emergencies are unfounded, they added, because the Senate bill does not change a provision in the existing law that compels third-party providers to give the government information in situations where lives are at risk or children are being exploited or abused.

Digital Due Process, a wide-ranging coalition that includes Google, Microsoft and Twitter, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union and Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, has mounted a public relations campaign supporting the Senate bill. The coalition says updating the law will clear the ‘‘murky legal landscape’’ for companies and consumers alike and provide the proper safeguards for the vast amounts of information stored in server farms.

There’s money at stake, too. The global market for cloud computing via the Internet is estimated to be $240 billion by 2020. But the Business Software Alliance, a coalition member that represents Apple, Intel and Microsoft, said U.S. cloud providers are at a disadvantage unless online privacy and security laws are changed. If consumers aren’t sure their information is being properly protected by U.S. firms on the remote, networked computer servers that make up the cloud, they'll take their business elsewhere.

Online:

Digital Due Process: http://tinyurl.com/yce79za