Governor Brown signed the landmark California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (CalECPA) into law on October 8. CalECPA updates California privacy law for the digital world by requiring that California government entities obtain a probable cause warrant from a judge before they can access our emails, text messages, metadata (including information about our location and calling patterns) and other digital information from service providers like Google or directly from devices like our cell phones.
CalECPA was carefully crafted to protect privacy, support innovation, and safeguard public safety. The bipartisan bill, co-authored by California State Senators Leno and Anderson, was supported by a large and diverse coalition of the state’s leading civil rights organizations and technology companies. The authors also worked closely with the state’s law enforcement groups to ensure that the law would provide police with the tools they need to protect public safety.
A landmark law like CalECPA requires years of work, both publicly and behind the scenes. I have been actively engaged in scholarly work related to electronic surveillance law for more than 20 years as well as work on important appellate cases that have helped to move the law forward in the courts. I was pleased to be able to draw upon this expertise and serve as an issue expert for the bill’s authors. For the past year, I helped answer questions about bill language, testified at committee hearings in Sacramento about provisions and legal impact, and coordinated dozens of academic colleagues across the nation to become involved and send a joint scholarly analysis and support letter to Governor Brown.
On January 1, when CalECPA goes into effect, California will have what all agree is the best law of its type in the country. The law’s federal corollary, ECPA, has not been updated since 1986. Over 300 members of Congress are currently supporting a reform effort to also give this federal law a long overdue update. I am glad to have been able to play an important part in helping to make CalECPA a reality and I will be continuing my work to provide expertise for the federal effort as well.
