Alongside the much needed Aaron’s Law, Internet superhero Rep. Zoe Lofgren has reintroduced her ECPA amendment into the home for consideration. The recent bill keeps most of the protections from last year’s ECPA 2.0 Act, but incorporates a few important additions.

Lofgren announced today that she has introduced the net Communications and Geolocation Protection Act in the home. As its name implies, this new bill goes beyond what the unique ECPA 2.0 Act hoped to perform. For one, the fight is not any longer restricted to law enforcement snooping through your emails with no warrant as Lofgren is usually targeting law enforcement’s ability to acquire smartphone location data and not using a warrant besides.

“Fourth Amendment protections don’t stop on the Internet. Americans expect Constitutional protections to increase to their online communications and site data,” Rep. Lofgren said. “Establishing a warrant standard for presidency access to cloud and geolocation provides Americans with the privacy protections they expect, and would enable service providers to foster greater trust with their users and international trading partners.”

Here’s a breakdown of the core tenets of this new bill:

Require the govt. to procure a warrant to access to wire or electronic communications content;

Require the govt to acquire a warrant to intercept or force service providers to reveal geolocation data;

Preserve exceptions for emergency situations, foreign intelligence surveillance, individual consent, public information, and emergency assistance;

Prohibit service providers from disclosing a user’s geolocation information to the govt. within the absence of a warrant or exception;

Prohibit using unlawfully obtained geolocation information as evidence;

Provide for administrative discipline and a civil reason for action if geolocation information is unlawfully intercepted or disclosed.

One of the things keeping the ECPA 2.0 Act from getting anywhere was that Lofgren didn’t have any co-sponsors. That every one changes with this bill as she has managed to rope in Texas Rep. Ted Poe and Washington Rep. Suzan DelBene as co-sponsors. Both seem genuinely excited to be supporting the bill in addition:

“Long ago decade, advances in technology and the web have dramatically changed the manner we communicate, live and work – and on this constantly evolving world, Congress ought to be a superb steward of policy to be sure our laws sustain,” said Rep. DelBene. “When current law affords more protections for a letter in a filing cabinet than an email on a server, it’s clear our policies are outdated. This bill will update privacy protections for consumers while resolving competing interests between innovation, international competitiveness, and public safety.”

Poe wins the correct statement of the day award, however, for rightly mentioning that the Constitution would not change inside the face of recent technology:

“As technology continues to adapt and improve, Congress must be sure the Fourth Amendment rights of our citizens are protected. We are living in a far different world than 1986. It’s time for Washington to modernize this outdated legislation to get closer the days. Technology may change, however the Constitution doesn’t.”

The addition of geolocation protection must also help Lofgren get a number of friends inside the Senate. Sen. Al Franken is likely to introduce his twice defeated Location Privacy Protection Act into the Senate again, and most of Lofgren’s bill would fit snugly with Franken’s legislation. As for the e-mail protections in Lofgren’s bill, it’d be ready to buddy up with Rep. Bob Goodlatte’s proposed legislation that seeks to modernize the ECPA.

I wouldn’t suggest you get too excited though. Law enforcement agencies have fought against any and all ECPA reform over the last few years claiming that it might make their jobs harder. It’s going to thoroughly do this, but Americans have an expectation of privacy the extends into the digital realm. The law should be updated to take care of with this expectation.