Library leader calls on Senate to pass privacy reform with “real meaning for real people” as House takes historic ECPA vote

For Immediate Release
Wed, 04/27/2016

Contact:

Jazzy Wright

Press Officer

ALA Washington Office

American Library Association

2024038208

jwright@alawash.org

 
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Today, Sari Feldman, president of the American Library Association (ALA), applauded passage of the Email Privacy Act by the U.S. House of Representatives by an overwhelming majority. The bill, if approved by the U.S. Senate, is expected to be signed by President Barack Obama and would modernize the Electronic Communications and Privacy Act (ECPA).
 
"The House today filled a hole of monumental proportions in Americans' Fourth Amendment privacy rights by finally requiring that the government get a real search warrant to access the content of all of our emails, texts, cloud files and other electronic communications left unprotected for most of their digital lives by the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Thank you! The Senate now can and must take up this finely tuned bill and pass it without major change or delay if the Fourth Amendment is to have real meaning for real people in the internet age.”
 
About the American Library Association
 
The American Library Association is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 58,000 members in academic, public, school, government, and special libraries. The mission of the American Library Association is to provide leadership for the development, pro¬motion and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all.