California state lawmaker Mark Leno is pushing a new bill, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (calECPA), set to offer more protections online for U.S. citizens.

If the law is passed, California residents would be protected from warrantless collection of internet information, including private communications and storage data.

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It would force law enforcement in the state to acquire a warrant before searching online information and the search would go service by service, instead of collecting broad information from every service, which the NSA permits currently.

"Other states have moved ahead, bypassing California. Texas, Maine, Utah, are among 15 states that have put into law similar protections and the Supreme Court of the United States has urged state legislatures to update their warrant requirements for the digital age. This time, different from before, we have near universal support from the tech industry." Leno said.

This would be a big gain for U.S. citizens in California, currently without any real securities against NSA surveillance.

Technology companies Adobe, Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft have all show support for the new law, claiming it is a big step in the right direction to getting online freedoms and privacy back.

It is not the first digital warrant to be put into effect, but is the most comprehensive according to legal experts. It could spur other states to enact similar laws to protect their citizens.

The FBI claims it needs even more access to citizen's data due to the increasing threat of terrorism, but most Senators seem to be going the other way and offering more protection to the average citizen who may be bundled in with the investigation. 

TagsMark Leno, california, digital warrant, cyber privacy, Electronic Communications Privacy Act, San Francisco