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The Email Privacy Act (HR 387) passed by voice vote in the House on Monday night. Many thanks to everyone who reached out to their Representative to encourage support of the bill!
The bill now moves over to the Senate. The American Library Association Washington Office and its partners in the Digital Due Process Coalition are working together to strategize the advocacy efforts for the Senate. Stay tuned for another request for advocacy.
For more information, see the District Dispatch article.
Your action is needed on or before Mon 2/6! From the American Library Association Washington Office:
“On Monday, February 6, the entire House of Representatives will vote on H.R. 387 using a special procedure that will protect it from amendments and expedite the process. That procedure (known as a suspension of the rules) also requires that it receive support from two-thirds of the Representatives voting, not as a simple majority. The bill should have no trouble clearing that hurdle. Given how many Members of Congress and their staffs are brand new-and how important this vote is-we cannot afford to sit back and watch.
“With the crucial vote on H.R. 387 set for Monday, we have no time to lose. Help us send the Email Privacy Act to the Senate with another unanimous vote in the House. Contact your Representative now.”
Background: This the same Email Privacy Act that was unanimously passed in the House last year (HR 699), then stalled in the Senate. If passed, it would extend 4th Amendment privacy protection to emails, texts, tweets, cloud-stored photos and files, and other electronic communications.
Last year’s vote was unanimous, and all of MD’s Representatives who were in office last year voted for the bill (Cummings, Delaney, Harris, Hoyer, Ruppersberger and Sarbanes). Congressmen Harris and Cummings were also co-sponsors of the bill. It is still critical to ensure that they vote in support of the bill this year.
Take action! Please take a moment on or before Mon 2/6 to contact your Representative via email (a pre-written letter is provided), phone or tweet using Engage at http://cqrcengage.com/ala/. Additional background information and talking points are also available at this link.
Thanks in advance for your advocacy efforts!
The Email Privacy Act (HR 699) passed unanimously in the House, 419-0—an unheard of vote. The American Library Association Washington Office’s District Dispatch reports that “The successful joint effort produced a bill that will amend ECPA [Electronic Communications Privacy Act] so that, for the first time, any authority seeking the actual content of an individual’s emails, texts, tweets, online photos, files stored in the cloud and other electronic communications will first have to get a real search warrant from a real judge.”
All of Maryland’s Representatives voted for the bill except Congressman Van Hollen, who did not vote. Please take the time to contact your Representative and thank them for their support, especially Congressmen Cummings, Edwards and Harris who co-sponsored the bill.
The work is entirely done. The bill has now moved over to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The hope is that the Senate will either pass HR 699 or its own similar bill, S 356.
For more information, see the article in the District Dispatch.
