Email Privacy Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. DelBENE. Mr. Speaker, updating our laws to reflect the way the world works in the 21st century has been one of my top priorities in Congress.

After spending two decades in the technology sector where things change at light speed, it can be hard to understand why we still have laws on the books that don't reflect how society functions in the digital age. Nowhere has this been more obvious than in our email privacy laws that date back to the 1980s.

Under current law, there are more protections for a letter in a filing cabinet than an email on a server. This was never really the intent, but email's evolution has made it clear that our policies are woefully outdated.

I have supported a number of different proposals to reform our electronic privacy laws, and I will continue to push for those. Today's vote on the Email Privacy Act is a great step forward for American civil liberties.

I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this important legislation, and I urge our friends in the Senate to take up the bill without delay so we can send it to the President and ensure Americans are guaranteed the privacy protections most think that they already have.

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