Imagine that you are back in the mid-1980s.  Most people’s knowledge of computers comes from the movie Wargames.  Some larger business and universities had computer networks with employees having work stations, but home computing was just beginning.  Apple had just introduced the McIntosh, but, if you used a Microsoft operating system, you were using MS-DOS.  Additionally, your home computer used a dial-up modem if you wanted to communicate with other computers.  To communicate with another computer, you needed to know the phone number for that computer’s modem.  (If you were just searching to see what was out there, there were techniques and programs known to hackers to find other computers and save those numbers for later use.)  A pre-internet existed through “bulletin board systems” which allowed the posting of messages and downloading and uploading information through that system.

It was in this era that Congress passed the Stored Communications Act of 1986 as Title II of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986.  While there have been some minor changes since 1986, the core provisions of that Act (codified as Sections 2701 through Section 2712 of Title 18 of the United States Code) are essentially the same as they were in 1986.

While most of the provisions of the Stored Communications Act protects the rights of those who use electronic communications, some of the sections (including Section 2703) establish the procedure by which the government can obtain stored communications when needed for a criminal investigation.  The procedures recognize that these communications might be stored in another state and require companies to honor warrants issued in the state in which prosecutors need access to those communications. Continue Reading...