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 The group, Digital 4th, on Wednesday launched
www.notwithoutawarrant.com, a website urging the public to lobby the
White House to support sweeping changes to federal privacy laws
proposed in Congress in 2013.
In a conference call with reporters, the group singled out the SEC
for stalling the reforms. It also called on President Barack Obama
to respond to a petition with more than 100,000 signatures in
support of the bill, saying the SEC's opposition has caused the
White House to ignore a groundswell of support.
"We do believe that the SEC and the other administrative agencies
have been a major stumbling block to passing this legislation," said
Chris Calabrese, the legislative counsel for the American Civil
Liberties Union, a member of Digital 4th.
The White House did not have a comment on when or how it would
respond to the petition.
 "We continue to believe the Electronic Communications Privacy Act
should be updated, and we look forward to continuing to work with
Congress on this important issue," White House spokesman Matt
Lehrich said.
In a statement Wednesday, SEC Enforcement Director Andrew Ceresney
said the legislation in its current form is not workable.
"Civil law enforcement agencies like the SEC aren't able to obtain
the search warrants that the proposed legislation would require," he
said. "Preserving access to evidence through (Internet service
providers) for the SEC and other civil law enforcement agencies is
critical to protect the American public from wrongdoers."
Currently, government investigators can access certain emails with a
subpoena, which has a lower legal threshold than a warrant because
it does not involve a judge and is therefore easier to obtain.
But technology companies, including Google Inc <GOOG.O>, have
refused in recent years to disclose old messages without a warrant,
as privacy advocates say digital messages should not be treated
differently than physical private communication.
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The issue intensified last year when Edward Snowden, a former
contractor for the National Security Agency, leaked classified
documents that revealed the government was broadly monitoring the
telephone and Internet data of Americans.
Lawmakers, including Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick
Leahy, sought to make it more difficult for government investigators
to obtain Americans' email information through an update to the
Electronic Communications Privacy Act.
In 2013, the measure cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee with
bipartisan support, and a companion bill with 200 co-sponsors was
introduced in the House of Representatives. But it is unclear
whether Congress will pass the bill in a busy election year.
SEC Chair Mary Jo White previously raised concerns about both the
bill and the impact of a 2010 ruling by the Sixth Circuit Court of
Appeals that found the Justice Department's use of a subpoena to
obtain emails directly from internet service providers violated
Fourth Amendment protections against warrantless searches.
In a letter last year, she said the ruling had a negative effect on
the commission's enforcement powers. That is because subpoenaing
individuals directly for electronic records, as opposed to internet
providers, gives people the ability to delete or withhold crucial
information.
White warned that the bill would codify the court's ruling, and
urged lawmakers to strike a better balance by allowing the SEC to
still subpoena internet providers while satisfying certain standards
comparable to those that govern criminal warrants.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; additional reporting by Roberta
Rampton; editing by Karey Van Hall, Andre Grenon and Andrew Hay)
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