Guarding the cloud

Published February 22, 2019 5:00am ET



Privacy advocates and some tech companies hope 2019 will be the year that Congress revamps a 33-year-old law that allows law enforcement agencies easy access to some emails and other communications stored in the cloud.

Under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, or ECPA, of 1986, law enforcement and regulatory agencies do not need a court-ordered warrant to search email and other electronic documents stored in the cloud or with a tech vendor for longer than 180 days.

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