California now has the country's best digital data protection law (WIRED translation)

Translation of the California Now Has the Nation's Best Digital Privacy Law article from WIRED on the new Digital Messaging Privacy Act passed on 8/10/15.

Legislation, even if not ours, has finally turned its eyes to the protection of privacy in digital format.

California has continued its long tradition of creating farsighted privacy laws today, when Governor Jerry Brown has signed a comprehensive privacy law.

The historic Digital Privacy Act prohibits anyonelaw enforcement agencies or other entities involved in investigations, require the company or company to disclose any metadata or digital messages, including letters, texts, documents posted in the cloud - without an appropriate warrant. Also, from now on, a warrant will be required to calculate the locations of electronic devices such as mobile phones, or to examine their contents.

According to the American Civil Rights Union , this law, easily passed through the legislature last month, is the most comprehensive and comprehensive.

“This is a historic victory both in the protection of digital data and for all California residents,” says Nicole Ozer, ACLU Director of Technology and Civil Liberties Policy, “American Civil Liberties Union . “We hope that this law will set an example for the whole country in the field of protecting our rights to the confidentiality of digital data.”

In five other states, legislation provides a warrant for viewing content, and in 9 other states it will be needed to track GPS location. According to Lakes, California was the first state to introduce a comprehensive law to protect local data, content, metadata, and viewing data on devices.

“This is truly a significant step forward in our modern digital age.”

State Senators Mark Leno (Democrat, San Francisco) and Joel Anderson (Republican, Alpine) drafted a bill earlier this year to provide digital data with the same protections that analog messages have.

“Is there a logical reason why a hand-written letter stored in a desk drawer enjoys more protection from unreasonable surveillance by the state than a letter sent to a colleague by e-mail or a love message sent via SMS?” Leno said earlier this year. "This is pointless and violates the right to freedom and privacy, which is guaranteed by the constitution to every resident of California."

The law has been widely supported among civil rights defenders such as the American Civil Liberties Unionand the Electronic Frontier Foundation , as well as major IT companies such as Apple, Google, Facebook, Dropbox, LinkedIn and Twitter , with headquarters in California. He also received great support from the legislators of both Democrats and Republicans.

“For too long, California’s digital privacy laws have been inhibited at the Dark Ages, leaving our emails, text messages, photos and smartphones increasingly vulnerable to unauthorized surveillance,” Leno said today. “It will stop today when the California Private Electronic Communications Privacy Act is signed, a carefully crafted law that protects the privacy of all California residents. The law also guarantees that law enforcement officials will have the necessary tools to continue the fight against crime in the digital age. ”

The law only applies to California law enforcement. Law enforcement agencies in other states are under the jurisdiction of their municipalities. Therefore, Lakes believes that it is very important to achieve the adoption of similar laws throughout the country.

This act of law not only pushes California to the forefront of digital data protection among states, but is also ahead of federal law, where such legislative initiatives have not been developed.

Civil liberties advocates have long tried to lobby for an amendment to the Law on the Confidentiality of Electronic Communications, which would expand its effect throughout the country. The amendment to the law passed through the US Congress, in which she had 300 supporters. However, this proposal was less widespread in terms of sphere of influence than the law signed by Brown, and would hardly touch on digital information. Currently, the Law provides for an order to view information with a statute of limitations of less than 180 days. The amendment would expand the need for an order for all digital content, regardless of the date it was created.

California has long been a pioneer in protecting privacy. In 1970, voters introduced an amendment to the state constitution to provide greater protection for private rights, far more robust than the fourth amendment to the US Constitution. Although an amendment to state law provided all residents of California with the right to privacy, lawmakers of that time could not foresee the technological breakthroughs that occurred in subsequent decades. The law, signed today by Governor Brown, closes the tracking loopholes left by the previous amendment and “legally enshrines what was laid down by the previous law,” Ozer adds.

“We, of course, hope that this act of law will become a prerequisite for a similar amendment at the federal level,” Ozer said in an interview with Wired. "This is not only a step forward for all California residents, but, I hope, a good example for all Americans to receive such protection of private digital information."

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