LEADS Act Reintroduced in Congress as Debate Looms Over Communications/Privacy Reform

One of the major policy debates in Washington D.C. is how to protect the privacy rights of all Americans. One piece of legislation that could help with privacy concerns is the Law Enforcement Access to Data Stored Abroad Act (LEADS Act).  Introduced by Chairman of the Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), and Sen. Chris Coons (D-Conn.), the LEADS Act would provide better tools for the United States government to obtain needed information abroad in criminal pursuits, but at the same ensure privacy protections for Americans while respecting the laws of other countries.

Alan Daley of the American Consumer Institute described the balance of pursuing criminals and protecting privacy in a piece for The Daily Caller on February 12, 2015:

LEADS will improve and facilitate the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty process to address issues inherent in issue involving U.S. companies operating abroad, much like the case seeking an Irish citizen’s email. LEADS will also discourage countries from establishing data localization requirements, which has become a movement in reaction to privacy violation resentments. Data localization laws inhibit storing foreign individuals’ information on U.S. located severs – essentially, which would be a competitive and economic disadvantage to U.S. firms operating overseas.

The LEADS Act was first introduced in September of 2014 by Senator Hatch as an amendment to the update of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. TPA supports ECPA reform, as it would strengthen protections under Fourth Amendment to include data stored by third-party services, or “cloud storage” as most people know them today. The reintroduced bill not only has bipartisan support in Congress, there is also a wide range of support for LEADS in the tech community as well as the business sector.

Advocates for privacy protection are also strong supporters of the bill because it uses the law to help address the privacy abuses that many fear federal agencies could continue to engage in on a regular basis. Add to the overarching case for reform that ECPA was originally enacted in 1986 and is dire need of an update, considering the advancements in technology over nearly the last three decades.

Senator Hatch discussed the wide-range of support, as well as the core concerns addressed by LEADS:

This is a pro-business, pro-innovation bill that will protect American privacy in the digital age and promote trust in U.S. technologies worldwide. While I agree in principle with the ECPA reform bills recently introduced in the House and Senate, neither establishes a framework for how the U.S. government can access data stored abroad. As Congress works to reform our domestic privacy laws, we must modernize the legal framework for government access to digital data stored around the world. This bill recognizes that these two issues are inextricably linked.

It has been nearly one year since the White House released the findings of the Big Data and Privacy Working Group, which supported amending ECPA as one of its major recommendations.

The debate over privacy and communications will continue to evolve and expand as technology changes but there are certain goal posts that need to be reached in order for the right reforms to be achieved. Reforming the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) is one of those.

With the LEADS Act, Congress has a chance to give the government the tools they need to pursue bad actors that have the advancements of technology on their side.  LEADS also ensures that the agencies using those tools do not abuse the privacy rights of Americans, which has been a major concern after leaks of classified information showed that NSA surveillance had resulted in some privacy abuses.