Jeff Gelles: Group is urging updates to a 1986 law that threatens digital privacy

As I'm reminded whenever I travel, the era of smartphones, websites, and cloud computing has brought wondrous advances to my life.

If I get lost, I can create an instant map, activate a GPS app on my iPhone, or call the person or business I'm trying to find. I can access my e-mail constantly - OK, not every advance is so wondrous. And I can get my personal data wherever I roam, whether around town, across the country, or overseas.

Is there any danger to all that access?

Yes, according to Digital Due Process, a broad coalition of technology firms, privacy experts, and advocacy groups focusing on a problem most of us would likely rather ignore: the fact that if you and I can get all that information anywhere and anytime, so can the most intrusive government investigators.

Its conclusion? U.S. laws have been outpaced by technological advances, especially in the 25 years since passage of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. With bipartisan support in Congress - but against quiet resistance from law enforcement agencies - Digital Due Process is urging key updates to the law.

You don't have to be Franz Kafka, George Orwell, or even Ron Paul to recognize at least a theoretical threat to your liberty from the massive gray areas that have arisen as a result of e-mail, mobile phones, and Internet-everywhere computing. Just stop for a moment and think.

A quarter-century ago, government investigators needed a warrant to search your house or intercept your phone calls. They still do.

But what about tracking your location by your cell signal - which can be done precisely enough to sometimes identify the exact room you're in, according to University of Pennsylvania computer scientist Matt Blaze?

What about examining documents you've stored online, or data-mining e-mails stored by Google's massive servers, or looking into whom you've called and when on your Verizon cellphone?

Google alone reports that it received nearly 6,000 such requests from government agencies and courts in the United States during the first six months of last year.

Several years ago, Verizon executives told Congress that they received about 90,000 such requests each year from law enforcement agencies.