A coalition of over 70 organizations sent a letter yesterday to President Obama, urging him to support a clean update to our online privacy laws and warning him about the dangers of carving out any exceptions that would give some government agencies warrantless access to our online communications. The message was simple:

We write today to urge you to support reform of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) to guarantee that every American has full constitutional and statutory protections for the emails, photos, text messages, and other documents that they send and share online.

It was delivered by some powerful and diverse messengers. A host of consumer protection organizations joined with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Civil rights groups paired with small government conservatives. Tech companies banded with librarians.

All of this reflects the genuine, overwhelming support for an update to our email privacy laws. ECPA, the main statute protecting privacy online, was written in 1986, and despite Congress' best intentions, its privacy safeguards have become outdated and loopholes have arisen. The letter calls for the president to support the Email Privacy Act, which would update ECPA by protecting all online communications with a warrant. It was sent in anticipation of a report from the President's "Big Data Review Group," which is expected to be released this week.

This should not be complicated:

Updating our electronic privacy laws has enormous popular and political support. 100,000 Americans signed a petition in November 2013 urging your support for ECPA reform. That petition has still not received a response. More than 200 members of the House of Representatives have cosponsored H.R. 1852. The Senate Judiciary Committee has voted S. 607 out of committee on a voice vote. More than 100 privacy and consumer groups, companies, and trade associations have joined a coalition to reform ECPA. Civil rights, media justice, and privacy groups have recently endorsed civil rights principles for big data that call for updating constitutional protections like ECPA when addressing new technologies.

Seems like a noncontroversial, politically popular step that a president so often mired in accusations of pervasive surveillance could take to appease his detractors and begin rebuilding trust among the American people. This is no small feat in today's starkly divided political climate. But despite the widespread calls for action, so far the administration refuses to support a clean update.

Strangely, the pushback is not coming from law enforcement this time, but rather from civil agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), who would like to use the bill to enhance their own authority. They're arguing for a huge loophole (which you can read about here) that could allow non-criminal investigations into our inbox from everyone from the IRS to the local health inspector.

The White House needs to move beyond these agency concerns, listen to this plethora of groups, and embrace real commonsense reform this year.

If you'd like to add your voice to the chorus please visit:www.NotWithoutaWarrant.com.

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每個人都希望改革ECPA - 那麼在哪裡白宮？

超過70個組織組成的聯盟昨天致信奧巴馬總統，敦促他支持一個乾淨的更新我們的在線隱私保護法，並警告他關於雕刻出任何異常，這將使一些政府機構無證訪問我們的在線通信的危險。消息很簡單：

我們今天就寫到呼籲大家支持的電子通訊隱私法（ ECPA）的改革，以保證每個美國人有充分的憲法和法律保護的電子郵件，照片，短信，而且他們發送和共享其他文件聯機。

它被送到了一些強大和多樣化的使者。主機消費者權益保護組織的加入​​與美國商會。搭配小政府的保守派民權團體。高科技公司結合與館員。

所有這一切都反映了一個更新我們的電子郵件的隱私法的真正的，壓倒性的支持。 ECPA的主要法規保護在線隱私，寫於1986年，儘管國會的最好的意圖，其隱私保護措施已成為過時和漏洞已經出現。信中要求總統支持電子郵件隱私法，這將更新ECPA可以防止所有的在線通信與認股權證。它被送往預期從總統的“大數據審查小組， ”預計在本週發布的一份報告中。

這不應該複雜：

更新我們的電子隱私法具有巨大的人氣和政治支持。 10萬美國人簽名的請願書2013年11月，要求你對ECPA改革的支持。該項呈請仍未收到答复。眾議院的200多名成員共同舉辦的人力資源1852年的參議院司法委員會已投票S. 607出來委員會口頭表決。超過100隱私和消費者團體，企業和行業協會紛紛加入聯盟改革ECPA 。公民權利，媒體正義和隱私團體最近已批准公民權利原則要求處理新技術更新時，憲法保護像ECPA的大數據。

似乎是一個無爭議的，政治上受歡迎的步驟，總統因此常常陷入無孔不入的監視的指責可以採取安撫他的批評者，並開始重建美國人民之間的信任。這是不小的壯舉在今天的分成截然不同的政治氣候。但是，儘管採取行動的廣泛呼籲，迄今為止政府拒絕支持一個乾淨的更新。

奇怪的是，推回不是從執法這次來，而是來自民間機構，如證券交易委員會（ SEC）和美國國稅局（ IRS ） ，誰願意用該法案，以加強自己的權威。他們吵了一大漏洞（你可以約在這裡閱讀） ，可能會允許非刑事調查，我們的收件箱從每個人從國稅局到當地的衛生檢查員。

白宮需要超越這些機構的關注，聽這多如牛毛群體，擁抱真正的常識性的改革，今年。