Coalition Letter Urging Congress to Update Privacy Laws

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As public interest groups dedicated to limited, Constitutional government, we write to urge Congress to extend the Fourth Amendment’s protections to Internet-based “cloud” and mobile location services. Specifically, Congress should amend outdated U.S. laws originally intended to protect citizens against unwarranted law enforcement access to their private information held electronically by third parties. The laws protecting such information, while robust at the time of their enactment, have been eroded by technological change. By closing the resulting gaps in legal protection, Congress can restore Americans’ individual liberties in the digital age and ensure the Internet remains a powerful engine of economic growth, while preserving the tools needed by law enforcement investigations and removing legal uncertainty that may hamper law enforcement’s effectiveness.