The government often doesn’t need a warrant to get your e-mails. But most think it should.

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Your e-mails have fewer legal protections than you probably think. Thanks to a 1980s-era law known as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, or ECPA, the government generally doesn't need a warrant to get its hands on e-mails stored in your inbox for more than six months. The law dates back to long before storing everything in "the cloud" became the norm: When it was passed, it seemed crazy that digital storage could become so cheap that companies like Google would offer archive all of your e-mails (and much of the rest of our life) online. But even though how people use e-mail has changed dramatically since then, the law has not, despite bipartisan pushes to update it in recent years.

Now new polling suggests Americans are ready for the law to change. Some 77 percent of more than 1,000 registered voters surveyed by pollsters at Vox Populi in Nov said they believe a warrant should be required to access "emails, photos and other private communications stored online." When the voters had the basics of ECPA explained to them, 86 percent said it should be updated, and 53 percent said they'd be more likely to support a candidate who favored "strengthening online privacy" through reforming the law.


The government often doesn’t need a warrant to get your e-mails. But most think it should.