Leahy Outlines Pro-Privacy Agenda for Senate Judiciary Committee
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, D-Vt., said privacy will be at the forefront of his technology priorities for the committee in the 113th Congress, during a speech Wednesday at the Georgetown University Law Center. Leahy said he will “keep pushing to update our privacy laws to address emerging technology and the Internet,” including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). Leahy said he'll seek to pass a reauthorization bill to extend the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA), which expires Dec. 31, 2014. Notably absent from the speech was any mention of pursuing copyright legislation like Leahy’s PROTECT IP Act (S-968), which was stymied last year after Wikipedia, Craigslist and thousands of other websites blacked out their homepages in a coordinated protest of the bill.
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Leahy said he plans to bring back legislation to modernize and reform ECPA, calling the issue “one of the things that helped in my decision to stay as chair of the Judiciary Committee.” Last month the committee passed an amendment to the 1986 law aimed at offering citizens better privacy protections over their online data and electronic communications (CD Nov 30 p5). The legislation did not advance to a Senate floor vote but Leahy said Tuesday the December markup was part of his effort to “lay down the marker. … It is coming back up again.”
"I worry that people can track who you are calling and how, what sites you are reading and why,” said Leahy. “Nobody questions the fact that if a police agency wants to go into your home, open your files and papers and read through them, they are going to have to have a search warrant. I question their willingness to have a different view when they can do it from a hundred miles away with a keystroke. So it is going to be a fight, but I think people are realizing they don’t have to give up their ability to use the Internet and everything else while at the same time guarding their freedoms.”
Leahy’s previous ECPA amendment would require law enforcement agencies to acquire a warrant to access electronic communications stored by third parties, such as email service providers. The amendment would require agencies to, within 10 business days of obtaining an individual’s communications, notify that individual and give him a copy of the warrant. Leahy’s amendment included a provision that would allow the government to postpone that delay by 180 days in cases where a notification may interfere with a sensitive investigation. The committee adopted an amendment from Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Mike Lee, R-Utah, that would limit that delay to 90 days for government agencies that are not law enforcement agencies.
Leahy’s speech came two days before the one-year anniversary of the coordinated website blackouts that sunk his PROTECT IP Act and its House companion bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act (HR-3261). The bills, which sought to curb online piracy, faced significant opposition from Internet companies, cybersecurity experts, privacy advocates and grassroots Internet advocacy groups who said the bill could stifle innovation and limit free speech on the Web. At that time Leahy said he would “remain committed” to addressing the problem of online theft by foreign rogue websites. He admonished lawmakers last year who withdrew their support of the legislation, saying “the day will come when the senators who forced this move will look back and realize they made a knee-jerk reaction to a monumental problem.”
Leahy’s spokeswoman declined to say when or if the chairman would reintroduce copyright legislation this Congress, but told us: “Things are where they have been -- the Senator continues to monitor law enforcement actions and other developments, and that will help him determine a step forward.”