Political Quotes

“I thank the chairman. Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the Email Privacy Act. It has long been evident that we need to update the laws impacting electronic communications and privacy. I am pleased that, today, the House will take a major step forward by considering and approving the Email Privacy Act. Its passage is long overdue. In 2009 and 2010, when I was the chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, we held multiple hearings on ECPA, or electronic communication and privacy laws, and began to seriously consider reforms to our Nation's electronic communication and privacy laws. During the 112th Congress, Representative Conyers and I introduced the Electronic Communications Privacy Act Modernization Act of 2012, which would have required law enforcement to obtain a warrant based on probable cause before searching email. That approach, now embodied in the Yoder-Polis Email Privacy Act, is what we are here to consider today. The Email Privacy Act requires the government to obtain a warrant in order to access people's electronic communications from a third-party provider, protecting Americans' privacy rights while still enabling law enforcement to do its job. {time} 1430 This is consistent with a stark American practice going back to the Fourth Amendment.…”