The Online Communication and Geolocation Protection Act (OCGPA) was introduced on Tuesday by Representative Zoe Lofgren together with three other California Democrats. This new piece of legislation is seeking to finally update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986, which is already twenty seven years old. Under the latter, any read e-mail which is more than 180 days old can be read with a subpoena. Instead, under the OCGPA, a warrant would be needed to access any type of electronic communication or even any geolocation data.
The OCGPA and the Issue of Internet Privacy
With Information Technology and communication devices evolving at this expeditious speed, it seems sensible to believe that new laws are required that would guarantee US citizens’ privacy. Nowadays, much more information is dealt with online, which probably calls for strict legislation even though officials with the US Department of Justice have argued that any changes would complicate investigations and make the United States more susceptible to terrorist attacks.
With the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CIPSA) of 2011, intended to allow the sharing of Internet traffic information between the government and technology companies to help investigate cyber threats, many important and powerful corporations showed an interest in the right to get access to the customer’s private information. It is against this possibility that laws such as OCGPA are trying to be passed now, which would help ensure that Internet users’ private information remains private.
In a permanently changing world where technology occupies a larger place every month, legislation should get renewed fast to keep up. The struggle is between those who strive to keep their own privacy in an overly sharing society and those who seem to believe privacy is no longer relevant nowadays. In the long run, what happens in the House of Representatives will progressively shape what society will turn into.
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