Stickland's warrants-for-cloud-content amendment continues to rack up media praise

Texas state Rep. Jon Stickland's amendment to HB 2268 requiring warrants for cloud-based email and other computer content held by third parties continues to get good press, recently garnering him rare, unreserved praise from a Texas daily, the Fort Worth Star Telegram, which on June 12 issued a staff editorial ("Texas freshman legislator set a standard on privacy law") which opened:

Darned if the new guy from Bedford didn’t accomplish something of national importance in privacy law during his first term as a state representative.

Republican Rep. Jonathan Stickland, 29, was elected last year in District 92 with strong conservative and Tea Party backing. Todd Smith had vacated the seat in an unsuccessful run for the Senate.

As is the way of life for legislative freshmen, Stickland was relegated by many senior members to “seen but not heard” status. Still, he vowed to compile the most conservative voting record of anyone in the House — and he might have achieved that distinction or something close to it.

But what might turn out to be Stickland’s most important first-term accomplishment is the amendment he successfully attached to House Bill 2268, which has been sent to Gov. Rick Perry. (Ed. note: The bill was signed and has become Texas law.)

The amendment set national precedent by requiring law enforcement officers to get a warrant for access to someone’s email or customer data stored by an electronic service provider.

Congrats again to Rep. Stickland, his staff, and everyone at TXEPC who worked on the bill. As I've told several reporters recently, this was a big accomplishment for a freshman. Here are some links to additional, recent coverage of Sticland's email bill. (See earlier coverage rounded up here, here, and here.)

• Before It's News: One Giant Leap for Privacy: Texas now requires warrant for content
• The Daily Dot: Texas enacts email privacy law
• Tom's Guide to tech for real life: Texas law now can't snoop in email without a warrant 
• CultureMap Austin: Texas to feds: Come and take it (our digital data)
• Red Alert Politics: New law in Texas requires warrants to search emails
• Higher Thinking Primate: Texas becomes first state to require warrant for email spying
• Naked Security: Texas  becomes first US state to ban warrantless email spying
• The Unhived Mind: Strongest email privacy law signed by Texas governor
• Tech and Gadget News: Tea Party Republicans and 'liberal weenies' alike celebrate Texas email privacy law
• Llodo.com: Email snooping corralled in Texas: Other states may follow

Finally, a related update: Regular readers know that there's federal legislation moving to plug the same loophole in federal law that Stickland's amendment addressed in Texas' Code of Criminal Procedure. Here's a recent story on the House version of that federal legislation, which includes among its coauthors Texas Congressman Ted Poe.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/06/12/4933366/texas-freshman-legislator-set.html#storylink=cpy