WASHINGTON – Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced the ECPA Modernization Act Thursday, a bill that would update federal statutes to better reflect Americans’ modern expectations of privacy.

“Americans don’t believe the federal government should have warrantless access to their emails just because they are 180 days old,” Sen. Lee said. “They don’t believe the government should be able to always know where you are just because you are carrying a cell phone. It is long past time that Congress updated our federal laws to better protect Americans’ privacy.”

“Our digital privacy laws are woefully out of date and make no sense in the modern world,” Sen. Leahy said. “Americans expect and deserve strong, meaningful protections for their emails, texts, photos, location information and documents stored in the cloud. It’s time for Congress to enact broad reforms to ECPA and other privacy laws to bring these laws into the 21st Century.”