California lawmaker proposes warrant requirement for digital data access
While a warrant requirement for e-mail is unlikely to be passed at the federal level anytime soon (despite yet another recently introduced bill), a California state senator wants his home state to do just that. If passed, the bill would extend significant digital privacy rights to the most populous state in America.
On Monday, Mark Leno, a state lawmaker who represents San Francisco, is set to introduce a new bill, called the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (CalECPA).
If passed, it would not just impose a warrant requirement to access e-mail, but would also require that law enforcement officials not interact with any electronic device in the possession of a citizen—to put the law in formal compliance with the unanimous 2014 Supreme Court decision Riley v. California, which required a warrant to search a cellphone.
