Battle over e-mail privacy
Technology executives and law enforcement officials are clashing over a nearly 25-year-old law that protects Internet users’ private information.
Some of the world’s largest technology companies, including Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., are pushing for changes to the law -- written before the World Wide Web existed -- saying it makes it too easy for government investigators to access their clients’ Web-based e-mail and documents. That, the companies say, is bad for the bottom line.
Many consumers and businesses are finding it easier and cheaper to entrust the storage of their e-mail and documents to Web companies such as Google that can store vast amounts of data in the so-called cloud -- networks of remote computer centers filled with thousands of high-speed servers.
But the cloud’s wealth of personal data has also attracted law enforcement officials eager to tap into the information to catch and prosecute criminals. They say Congress should be wary about diminishing their powers to investigate crimes in a fast-changing digital landscape where evidence can disappear overseas -- or into oblivion -- in an instant.
The debate over the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act escalated Thursday in a hearing before a House Judiciary subcommittee -- the latest in a series of hearings aimed at updating the law to encourage the growth of online business while striking a balance between effective law enforcement and users’ right to digital privacy.
“We must learn to take advantage of these emerging technologies without ushering in a privacy-free civilization,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the panel’s chairman.
With the rise of the Internet, many consumers and businesses have moved to free, Web-based e-mail services such as Microsoft’s Hotmail and Google’s Gmail -- which let users store essentially unlimited numbers of messages, and access them from any networked computer or mobile device.
But law enforcement has long known that the trove of online information can be immensely useful -- and often easier to get than visiting a suspect’s home and seizing computers.
Many crimes now involve the use of digital devices, Thomas B. Hurbanek, a senior investigator in the New York State Police Computer Crime Unit, said at the hearing. When attempting to identify suspects, he said, “one of the primary sources of information are business records maintained by private-sector entities.”
To that end, investigators have frequently used the 1986 law to obtain data about people of interest, and they do not want to lose those powers.
Still, the technology companies say, the law may be too helpful to crime fighters.
Because it was written before Web-based e-mail, the companies said, it relies on an outdated assumption: If a consumer shares e-mail with a third party, Google, for example -- that e-mail is no longer considered completely private.
That lessened privacy has meant law enforcement doesn’t always need a search warrant to force companies to turn over users’ e-mail and documents.
“Our laws should protect individuals from unwarranted government intrusion in the online world no less than they do in the home,” Richard Salgado, a senior attorney at Google, told the committee.
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