Those speaking at the House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties for the "ECPA Reform and the Revolution in Cloud Computing" hearing on Thursday seem to agree that the time has come to reform the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) suggested the focus should be on protecting market, consumer and law enforcement interests, noting, for example, that the same data stored in the cloud has less legal protection than if stored on a home computer. Michael D. Hintze of Microsoft Corporation, who was one of the panelists at the event, said the key will be to create appropriate standards that strike a balance between legitimate law enforcement needs and user privacy.
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