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The story has become all too familiar. Someone dies, and her loved ones request the contents of her text, email, or social media accounts. Perhaps they wish to preserve this vibrant electronic slice of the decedent's life. Perhaps they are compelled in their grieving to sift through the minutiae of the decedent's final days. Or perhaps they are merely trying to fulfill their duty as trustee, executor, or administrator to pay the decedent's bills and inventory her property. However, the decedent's Internet Service Provider (“ISP”) -- be it Facebook, Yahoo!, or Microsoft -- refuses to comply. As Naomi Cahn explains in her outstanding contribution to the Vanderbilt Law Review's Symposium on the Role of Federal Law in Private Wealth Transfer, these ISPs are afraid of a byzantine federal statute from 1986: the Stored Communications Act (“SCA”). Section 2701 of the SCA criminalizes unauthorized access to electronic communications: a seemingly nasty glitch for fiduciaries attempting to marshal a decedent's digital assets. Section 2702 bars ISPs from disclosing a customer's private data without her “lawful consent.” Citing the fact that the SCA predates the rise of email -- let alone the phenomenon of a valuable Twitter account -- Professor Cahn argues that the statute should not govern fiduciaries. Alternatively, assuming that the SCA does apply, Professor Cahn discusses various ways around this obstacle, including the Uniform Law Commission's draft Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (“FADA”), which would clarify that fiduciaries generally enjoy the “authorization”' and “lawful consent” necessary to acquire a decedent's online accounts. This short invited reply takes a different route to the same destination. It begins by offering a reading of the SCA that diverges slightly from Professor Cahn's. However, it uses that discussion to echo her critique of the SCA and bolster the case for the FADA.
"The United States Code is the official codification of the general and permanent laws of the United States of America. The Code was first published in 1926, and a new edition of the code has been published every six years since 1934. The 2012 edition of the Code incorporates laws enacted through the One Hundred Twelfth Congress, Second Session, the last of which was signed by the President on January 15, 2013. It does not include laws of the One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, First Session, enacted between January 2, 2013, the date it convened, and January 15, 2013. By statutory authority this edition may be cited "U.S.C. 2012 ed." As adopted in 1926, the Code established prima facie the general and permanent laws of the United States. The underlying statutes reprinted in the Code remained in effect and controlled over the Code in case of any discrepancy. In 1947, Congress began enacting individual titles of the Code into positive law. When a title is enacted into positive law, the underlying statutes are repealed and the title then becomes legal evidence of the law. Currently, 26 of the 51 titles in the Code have been so enacted. These are identified in the table of titles near the beginning of each volume. The Law Revision Counsel of the House of Representatives continues to prepare legislation pursuant to 2 U.S.C. 285b to enact the remainder of the Code, on a title-by-title basis, into positive law. The 2012 edition of the Code was prepared and published under the supervision of Ralph V. Seep, Law Revision Counsel. Grateful acknowledgment is made of the contributions by all who helped in this work, particularly the staffs of the Office of the Law Revision Counsel and the Government Printing Office"--Preface.
This report provides an overview of federal law governing wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). It also appends citations to state law in the area and the text of ECPA. It is a federal crime to wiretap or to use a machine to capture the communications of others without court approval, unless one of the parties has given his prior consent. It is likewise a federal crime to use or disclose any information acquired by illegal wiretapping or electronic eavesdropping. Violations can result in imprisonment for not more than five years; fines up to $250,000 (up to $500,000 for organizations); civil liability for damages, attorneys' fees and possibly punitive damages; disciplinary action against any attorneys involved; and suppression of any derivative evidence. Congress has created separate, but comparable, protective schemes for electronic communications (e.g., email) and against the surreptitious use of telephone call monitoring practices such as pen registers and trap and trace devices. Each of these protective schemes comes with a procedural mechanism to afford limited law enforcement access to private communications and communications records under conditions consistent with the dictates of the Fourth Amendment. The government has been given narrowly confined authority to engage in electronic surveillance, conduct physical searches, and install and use pen registers and trap and trace devices for law enforcement purposes under ECPA and for purposes of foreign intelligence gathering under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.