The Department of Justice appears to think that the current laws around cloud data work. Today, prosecutors require a subpoena, which gives people the opportunity to challenge the request, in order to access data in the cloud, said Jason Weinstein, deputy assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice.

ECPA reform has been a sticky issue, which became clear during the panel discussion. "To listen to them, we're a bunch of jack-booted thugs who want to vacuum up as much information about Americans as we can," Weinstein said, referring to those pushing for tougher privacy rules.

"The danger is that in making changes to ECPA ... we could intentionally or unintentionally hinder law enforcement to protect public safety and national security," he said.

He complained that people focus too much on trying to limit government access to data while ignoring the way that companies or criminals abuse personal information.

In fact, the largest aggregator of personal information is the private sector, not the government, said Jenny Durkin, U.S. attorney in the Western District of Washington.