The Newspaper Association of America applauds the Senate Judiciary Committee for passing a bill that would reform the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (S. 607), sponsored by Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. The strong bipartisan vote reflects the importance of requiring the government to obtain a warrant from a judge based on probable cause before seeking the contents of private electronic communications and documents stored by third-party service providers.
“As more journalists move to the cloud – whether they use Web-based e-mail or document storage services – having a higher standard for government access to electronic content is critical to ensuring online privacy and protecting the integrity of the newsgathering process,” said NAA President and CEO Caroline Little.
About NAA
NAA is a nonprofit organization representing nearly 2,000 newspapers and their multiplatform businesses in the United States and Canada. NAA members include daily newspapers, as well as nondailies, other print publications and online products. Headquartered near Washington, D.C., in Arlington, Va., the association focuses on the major issues that affect today’s newspaper industry: public policy/legal matters, advertising revenue growth and audience development across the medium’s broad portfolio of products and digital platforms. Information about NAA and the industry also may be found at www.naa.org.