Posts tagged online backup service

Passed in 1986, ECPA updated the federal wiretap statute, known as Title III, was an attempt to take into account the rise of cellular technologies and electronic messaging.

ECPA brought these new forms of communications under the legal controls of the wiretap law, requiring the police to get a warrant to intercept cell phone transmissions, just as under Title III they needed a warrant to intercept wire line or hard wire calls. Private interception was also made illegal.

The information revolution has continued to advance since 1986 and unfortunately for the most part ECPA has not kept up.  The explosion of new data sources, and in particular the now billions or perhaps trillions of messages sent and received each day by individuals communicating through the Internet has created an explosion of data , offsite data backup and data storage needs..  The potential evidence these messages contain for a variety of investigations be it criminal, civil, terror-related has made them an irresistible target for law enforcement as well as civil litigants. More >