In February Senator Hatch introduced the Law Enforcement Access to Data Stored Abroad (“LEADS") Act, a bipartisan bill that will reform the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) to promote international comity and law enforcement cooperation.
On Friday leaders from nine conservative groups sent a letter to Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) of the House Judiciary Committee urging support for the LEADs Act.
The letter was signed by leaders from conservative organizations including the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, American Commitment, Americans for Tax Reform, Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, Institute for Liberty, National Center for Policy Analysis, Less Government, Let Freedom Ring, and RedState.
An excerpt:
The undersigned represent a broad coalition that encourages your support for the bipartisan Law Enforcement Access to Data Stored Abroad Act (the “LEADS Act”) introduced by Senators Hatch, Chris Coons, and Dean Heller in the Senate. The House bipartisan companion was introduced by Representatives Tom Marino and Suzan DelBene. This legislation will protect the privacy of American citizens, promote cross-border data flow and our global trade agenda, and provide the tools law enforcement needs.
Until now, the U.S. Government has relied on the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) to reach data of foreign citizens stored abroad so long as the company storing the data had a presence on U.S. soil. This practice creates distrust of American businesses and encourages foreign citizens, companies and countries to stop doing business with U.S. companies operating overseas. Eventually, this will harm U.S. companies and threaten America’s leadership in cloud computing technology.
Moreover, if the U.S. Government can obtain emails wherever stored simply by serving a warrant on a provider subject to U.S. process, nothing stops other countries – including China and Russia – from seeking to obtain emails of Americans stored on servers in the United States.
The LEADS Act addresses these problems by amending ECPA to clarify that law enforcement may use a warrant to obtain electronically stored communications overseas if the accountholder is a U.S. person. This extends the traditional reach of a warrant beyond U.S. borders, but is appropriately responsive to the global nature of electronic data storage in the 21st Century. The legislation provides that the U.S. law enforcement cannot require disclosure of data stored abroad if the data is not associated with a U.S. person or if accessing that data would violate the laws of the country where it is stored. Instead, the U.S. must work with the host country to obtain the data.
The full text of the letter can be found here
