[UPDATED 11/29/12]: Great news: The Senate Judiciary Committee approved Sen. Patrick Leahy’s amendment to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The bill now requires government officials to obtain warrants before examining your online content. The legislation now goes on to the full Senate for a vote.

Internet freedom means different things to different people. But for most of us it boils down to this: the freedom to read, do and say what we want online — and in private.

This Thursday, that freedom could come under attack. The Senate Judiciary Committee wants to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) — a bill passed in 1986, before most of us had even heard of the Internet — to bring it into the 21st century.

A good update to ECPA is in the works. It would ensure that our online activity is given the same privacy protections as snail mail and wired phone calls.

But a bad update is in the works, too. Sen. Chuck Grassley is pushing an amendment that would allow government agencies to snoop — without a warrant — on our email, our texts and any documents we have stored in the “cloud.”

The Judiciary Committee is voting this week on how to move forward with this important bill — either by strengthening privacy protections or getting rid of them. The Free Press Action Fund has joined a coalition of groups at VanishingRights.com to make sure the Senate moves to protect our right to online privacy.

Each day we communicate more and more online — where there's little protection against government snooping. We can fix this. Take action now to protect our online privacy and stand up for our Internet freedom.