Today, September 16, in a letter to the Senate Judiciary and an OpEd in Roll Call, Grover Norquist urges Senators to consider American’s Fourth Amendment protection against unwarranted search and seizure while discussing reforms surrounding the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.
With the rapid advancement of the Internet, unintended loopholes have been left open in the 1986 Act, turning it into a tool that could be used by the government to gather private information of American citizens without just cause. With reform to the ECPA, citizens’ rights can be ensured, while still allowing law enforcement effectively serve and protect.
“By going to a third party email provider with a subpoena rather than a warrant, the FBI, DEA, IRS, SEC, FTC and other government agencies are free to look into citizen’s information stored on the Internet without judicial oversight.”
[For the Full Letter, click here.]
The OpEd, co-authored by Grover and Naula O’Connor, President & CEO of Center for Democracy & Technology, emphasizes how important it is to act now on this breach of trust. This form of search and seizure with oversight is against American values, yet not all Americans have come to a consensus on this issue.
“Almost all Americans can agree on the basic principle that government should obtain a warrant before searching our records. Not every bill has the support of hundreds of members of Congress.
But as is often so, opponents of reform — in this case, government agencies that want to add to their legal authority – know that the broadest political coalitions and largest bipartisan majorities in Congress can be undone by adding even seemingly innocuous provisions to the basic consensus.”
For the full text of the OpEd, click here.