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 in my hand, is not private from the prying, spying eyes of government--our government. Most Americans have no idea that Big Brother can snoop on tweets, Gchats, texts, Instagrams, and even emails. Anything that is stored in the cloud for over 6 months is available to be spied on by government as long as it is older than 180 days. Now, why is that? Well, it goes all the way back to the outdated Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. That act protects privacy of emails that are less than 6 months old. In 1986, those were the days before the World Wide Web even existed. Many of us 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 did not exist. There was not any broadband, no social media, no tablets, or no smartphones. So, in 1986, lawmakers tried to protect emails but only did so for 180 days. Under current law, every email, every text, every Google doc and Facebook message, every photograph of our vacation is subject to government inspection without a warrant, without probable cause, and without our knowledge if it is older than 6 months. This is an invasion of privacy.…”