In the wake of the David Petraeus sex scandal, one D.C. legislator is concerned that local police can too easily access emails or other electronic communications between private citizens, relying on little more than a subpoena to do so.

As a means to correct that, Councilmember David Catania (I-At Large) announced this morning that he’ll seek to introduce a bill that would require police to get a warrant in order to access private emails and other electronic communications.

Under an existing federal law that dates back over two decades, police—both federal and local—can access electronic communications with relative ease: emails that have been read and remain on a server are largely fair game with little more than a subpoena, as are unopened emails that have been on a server for more than 180 days. According to ProPublica, Google alone received 7,969 such requests in the first half of 2012 alone.

That provision of the law burst into public view during the Petraeus scandal, when the FBI uncovered his extramarital affair by combing through old emails. And while a Senate committee recently voted to update the law and require police to get a warrant for any email or electronic communication, it has yet to pass the House—and advocates don’t know when that will happen.

That uncertainty has motivated Catania to act. “I believe that most people have an expectation of privacy in their electronic communications,” he said today. Under a bill that he hopes to introduce—whether today or early next year—local police would need a warrant to search any private email or electronic communication, no matter how new or old it is.

“I want the law to be consistent with the technology,” he said of his proposal, which has been backed from groups ranging from the ACLU to Digital Due Process, a coalition of civil libertarians, service providers and think tanks.

This morning Catania said that he wasn’t sure if he would pursue the measure as emergency legislation at today’s council session or not, but that he wanted the issue raised. “I want to introduce the topic and have a discussion to inform the public,” he said.