Electronic Communications Privacy Act (1986)

Congress passed the Electronic Communications Privacy Act ("ECPA") to expand the scope of existing federal wiretap laws, such as the Wiretap Act, to include protection for electronic communications. ECPA expands the privacy protections of the Wiretap Act in five significant ways:

1. ECPA broadens the scope of privileged communications to include all forms of electronic transmissions,including video, text, audio, and data.
   
2. ECPA eliminates the requirement that communications be transmitted via common carrier to receive legal protection.
   
3. ECPA maintains restrictions on the interception of messages in transmission and adds a prohibition on access to stored electronic communications.
   
4. ECPA responds to the Supreme Court's ruling in Smith v. Maryland that telephone toll records are notprivate and restricts law enforcement access to transactional information pertaining to users of electronic communication services.
   
5. ECPA broadens the reach of the Wiretap Act by restricting both government and private access to communications.