Two years after the Email Privacy Act (H.R. 387) was first introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, it was revisited Monday, Febuary 6th, and passed unanimously. This is a huge victory for proponents of digital privacy, but the fight is not over quite yet. Now that is has been passed in the House, it will need to be passed by the Senate before Americans’ right to email privacy can finally be updated for the 21st century.

On behalf of FreedomWorks’ activist community, I urge you to contact your representative and urge him or her to cosponsor the Email Privacy Act, H.R. 387, if they have not already done so. Introduced by Rep. Kevin Yoder, the Email Privacy Act brings the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986 into the 21st Century.

It’s rare when politicians in Washington can agree, and when they do, it’s usually bad news for liberty. But there’s an exception to every rule, and sometimes an idea is so obviously sensible that even the usual forces of reactionary partisanship aren’t enough to stand in its way.

In this modern age of technological marvels and electronic wizardry, we keep a lot of personal information online. The average person’s inbox is practically overflowing with any number of details - from personal correspondence to sensitive financial information - that we would prefer not fall into the wrong hands.

As one of our more than 6.7 million FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact your representative and senators today and ask them to support Electronic Communications Privacy Amendments Act. Introduced by Congressmen Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and by Senators Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) the ECPA Amendments Act (H.R. 699 and S. 356) is an important defense of Americans’ right to privacy in the digital age.

“The Fourth Amendment does not protect communications held in electronic storage, such as email messages stored on a server, because internet users do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in such communications.”

Did you know that the government can legally read your emails that are older than 180 days without a warrant?