Ted Poe: “Like most Americans, I store a lot on my computer and on my phone: family photographs, personal calendars, emails…”

“Like most Americans, I store a lot on my computer and on my phone: family photographs, personal calendars, emails, schedules, and even weekend to-do lists, or, as my wife calls them, honey-do lists. But this information stored on a phone like the one I have here is not private from the prying, spying eyes of government. Most Americans have no idea that Big Brother can snoop on tweets, g- chats, texts, Instagrams, and even emails. Anything that is stored in the cloud is available to be spied on by government, as long as it is older than 180 days. Now, why is that? Well, it goes back to the outdated Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. That act protects the privacy of emails that are less than 6 months old. 1986, those were the days before the World Wide Web even existed. Many of us--I do--have staff that weren't even born before 1986. We stored letters in folders, filing cabinets, and desk drawers. No one knew what the cloud was because the cloud didn't even exist. There was not any broadband, no social media, no tablets, or smartphones. The relatively few people who used email--and I remember when email was invented--never imagined keeping emails longer than it took to send it or read it. So it was perfectly reasonable that, in 1986, lawmakers tried to protect emails, but only did so for 180 days. Who would keep anything online for longer than 6 months? Well, three decades later, we know. Everybody stores their emails.…”