The "Warrant for Metadata Act" amends title 18, United States Code, to require a warrant for the disclosure of electronic communication service and remote computing service records, including metadata.
Ted Lieu
Representative
CA-36
The "Warrant for Metadata Act" amends Title 18 of the U.S. Code to require law enforcement to obtain a warrant before compelling electronic communication or remote computing services to disclose customer records or metadata. This eliminates previous exceptions that allowed access to older electronic communications without a warrant. It ensures that obtaining subscriber information and metadata necessitates a warrant under established legal procedures.
Warrant Mandate Proposed: Bill Requires Court Order for Metadata and Stored Digital Communications Access
This bill, officially the "Warrant for Metadata Act," aims to significantly change how law enforcement accesses your digital information held by service providers. It amends federal law (specifically Section 2703 of title 18, U.S. Code) to require investigators to get a warrant before they can compel companies like email providers, cloud storage services, or social media platforms to hand over records about their users, including metadata.
Closing the Loophole: Warrants for All Records
Currently, the rules for accessing stored digital information can be a bit murky, especially depending on how old the data is or what type of data it is. This bill simplifies things by requiring a warrant – the highest legal standard, demanding probable cause reviewed by a judge – for most types of stored electronic records. This includes the content of communications (like emails or messages) stored for more than 180 days, which previously might have been accessible with less than a warrant. Crucially, it also explicitly requires a warrant for obtaining "other information" about a user, which covers metadata – think things like email headers (to/from/subject/time), IP addresses used to log in, or potentially even location data tied to your account.
What's Metadata Anyway?
Think of metadata as the digital envelope or the call log for your online activity. It's data about your communications, not necessarily the content itself. For example, it could be who you emailed or texted, when you did it, and maybe your location when you sent it. This bill says law enforcement needs a warrant, based on probable cause, to get this kind of information from providers like Google, Apple, or your cell phone carrier, treating it with the same level of protection as the actual content of newer communications.
Real-World Impact: Your Digital Trail Gets More Protection
So, how does this play out? Imagine you use a cloud service to back up photos or documents. Under this bill, law enforcement couldn't just issue a subpoena to that company for logs showing when and from where you accessed your account; they'd need a warrant. Same goes for the records of who you've been messaging on a social media app or the logs held by your internet service provider. It standardizes the process, demanding a higher level of justification before investigators can access the digital trails we all leave behind.
Transitioning to the New Rules
The bill includes a note about timing: if a provider was already required to disclose information under the old rules before this Act passes, that specific disclosure isn't affected. However, Section 2 clarifies that any new request, or any request that expands on a previous one after this Act becomes law, falls under the new warrant requirement. This prevents using old, lower-standard orders to justify ongoing or broader access.