A New Bill to Protect the Privacy of Electronic Communication

The governor of Texas has recently authorized a new bill according to which any law enforcement agency in Texas will be forced to have a warrant if it is interested in gaining access to a private person’s email account.
This bill (HB 2268) is meant to amend the existing law – Electronic Communications Privacy Act from 1986 (ECPA) – which allows any law agency to delve into email accounts on condition that they had already been read or that they are older than six months.
This is the first law of its kind in the United States and in that sense Texas may be the pioneer and the precursor of an imminent change that will take place across the United States as a whole.
In April this year, a new initiative was taken by a Senate committee to bring about the total change of the ECPA and restrict government agencies’ access to private electronic communication by obligating them to file a request for a warrant.