
H.R.387 – Email Privacy Act - ericcumbee
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/387/text
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gwright
So frustrating that there is no easy way to apply the bill ‘diff’ to the
underlying statute and then read the result.

Legislative workflow is in serious need of some better tooling.

~~~
elastic_church
yeah, I've been thinking of this tool for about 7 years!

First the entire US code would have to be on a git repo. And all the approved
pull requests would also be there and you could roll it back to the very
beginning.

All the contributors would be the politicians. And all proposed bills would
show what they modified. And the branch they came from would have all the
other things.

I like it because it would also be open to discussion and scrutiny. But
transparency means a different thing to those people.

~~~
roryisok
That is a fantastic idea. I'm not even American and I'd be fascinated by that.
Every country should have this. During election time you could put in a
candidate's name and see their history, what they voted for, any legislation
they implemented etc. Truly open government.

There probably is something like this for the EU Parliament but buried
somewhere that nobody can find

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literallycancer
I'd be surprised if this wasn't already done in most countries. Checked my own
out of curiosity, and they log all proposals, all votes on them, and provide
the amendment text including how the new text would look with the changes
applied.[1][2]

Granted, it's not as easy to go back and see all the changes to a certain law,
but the data is there.

1 -
[http://www.psp.cz/sqw/historie.sqw?o=7&t=964](http://www.psp.cz/sqw/historie.sqw?o=7&t=964)

2 -
[http://www.psp.cz/sqw/phlasa.sqw?o=7&s=54&pg=17](http://www.psp.cz/sqw/phlasa.sqw?o=7&s=54&pg=17)

~~~
elastic_church
Yeah it really is not.

Should also be standard affair for state and municipal governments and all
regulators.

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problems
Any analysis or summary on this for those who don't want to read raw bill
text?

~~~
yusyusyus
It would require a warrant for grabbing email versus today's law which only
requires a simple subpoena after 180 days.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
A warrant for who? The NSA apparently can just run roughshod over any laws.

~~~
rosser
Regular law enforcement, in cases that don't warrant (not intended) "parallel
construction", presumably.

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eatbitseveryday
> by striking “divulge” and inserting “disclose”

That appears frequently. Not sure what legalize there is between the two
words.

There are many inclusions which sound like they are giving the government
unlimited rights -- "nothing shall limit" \--

> “(i) Rule Of Construction Related To Legal Process.—Nothing in this section
> or in section 2702 shall limit the authority of a governmental entity to use
> an administrative subpoena [..] to

> “(1) require an [..] intended recipient of a wire or electronic
> communication to disclose a wire or electronic communication (including the
> contents of that communication) to the governmental entity;

So, no restrictions on obtaining a warrant to look at emails. Free warrants?

> “(j) Rule Of Construction Related To Congressional Subpoenas.—Nothing [..]
> shall limit the power of inquiry vested in the Congress [..] including the
> authority to compel the production of a wire or electronic communication
> (including the contents of a wire or electronic communication) that is
> stored, held, or maintained by a person or entity that provides remote
> computing service or electronic communication service.”

This sounds like Congress is giving itself no restrictions to obtain the
contents of any email or electronic communications.

And then there is the "you cannot tell anyone about this warrant" clause:

> “(a) In General.—A governmental entity [..] may apply to a court for an
> order directing a provider [..] to not to notify any other person of the
> existence of the warrant, order, subpoena, or other directive.

> for delayed notification of up to 180 days

I understand the bits at the bottom to mean, "no weird interpretation of this
act can be made to seem like the US Gov't cannot have access to your
communications":

> Nothing in this Act or an amendment made by this Act shall be construed to
> preclude the acquisition by the United States Government of

> (1) the contents of a wire or electronic communication pursuant to other
> lawful authorities, including the authorities under chapter 119 of title 18
> (commonly known as the “Wiretap Act”), the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
> Act of 1978

Without having read the prior text, this sounds like it is giving the
government fewer restrictions for accessing stored communications.

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boomboomsubban
>So, no restrictions on obtaining a warrant to look at emails. Free warrants?

You're misreading a lot of the bill, it says that "nothing in this section or
the one preceding shall limit the already existing laws for warrants."
Similarly, the "you can't tell anyone" clause already exists, this just isn't
changing it.

This bill is removing a section in the existing law that considers data stored
on a server for more than 180 days abandoned, requiring only a subpoena to
access. It's a good bill, though it only addresses a tiny part of the
problems, which is why I expect it can get passed.

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JumpCrisscross
Is this politically feasible?

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foota
Looks like it was proposed by a republican, so if they've got their parties
buy in it could be. Could be related to Trump's tussle with the intelligence
community?

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anarazel
I think an earlier variant of this already passed the house near-unanimously.
It's the senate that balked last time round.

