Cloud Computing and Electronic Discovery

CHAPTER 6 Proposed Legislative Changes and Future Laws

James P. Martin

The year was 1986. The New York Mets won the World Series against the Boston Red Sox, a series that included a still infamous error by the Boston first baseman. In football, Jim McMahon led the Chicago Bears to a Superbowl win, and the still-forgettable song and video “The Superbowl Shuffle.” A startup technology company called Quantum Computer Services Inc. was a year old and featured an online service called Q-Link that worked with the Commodore 64. Five years later, in 1991, the company would change their name to America Online Inc., also known as AOL. Back to the Future played in theaters; the second installment of that franchise featured Marty McFly traveling to the faraway future year 2015 to save his kids from peril. And in 1986, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Reagan. Technology has advanced tremendously since 1986, however, the primary law that regulates disclosure of contents of computer communications and stored data is still the law of the land.

Few would have predicted in 1986 that e-mail would primarily replace paper-based mail as the primary means of communication, and that people would send business transactional and financial documents over e-mail. Fewer still might have predicted that cellular telephone technology would advance to the point that everyone would carry one at all times and they would be far more powerful ...