The US House unanimously approved legislation Wednesday requiring authorities to obtain a court warrant to acquire e-mails and data stored in the cloud.

The Email Privacy Act unwinds a President Ronald Reagan-era law that allows authorities to access e-mail and data from service providers without a warrant if the message or data is at least 180 days old. The 1986 e-mail privacy law, adopted when CompuServe was king, considered cloud-stored e-mail and other documents older than six months to be abandoned and ripe for the taking.

The measure now goes to the Senate, where its chances of passage are unknown. The Senate Judiciary Committee for years has debated and even passed similar legislation, which has gone nowhere. President Obama must also sign the bill, but it's unlikely to reach his desk before his term expires in January.

The legislation approved Wednesday was co-sponsored by more than 300 House members. A provision demanding that the target of the warrant be notified about the warrant was removed from the legislation. Because of varying precedent on whether a warrant is required already, many companies, including Google, already demand one.