Congressman Keith Self Introduces the PRIVACY Act to Protect Americans’ Fourth Amendment Rights

Congressman Keith Self (TX-03) introduced the Protecting Rights in Video and Equipment Acquired Discovery (PRIVACY) Act. The legislation would require federal law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant before accessing or querying surveillance data collected by state and local systems, including automated license plate readers (ALPRs) and other technologies.

"Americans' Fourth Amendment right to be secure in their privacy does not disappear just because of new technology or artificial intelligence," said Congressman Self. "Americans have a constitutional right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, and our government is supposed to get a warrant before invading that privacy. This bill simply restores that protection. Get a warrant."

The PRIVACY Actprotects Fourth Amendment rights by:

• Creating a list of intrusive technologies and requiring federal law enforcement to obtain a warrant before accessing or querying data from those systems.
• Limiting retention of data obtained under a warrant to 30 days, unless the data constitutes evidence in a prosecution or a court grants a limited extension.

• Prohibiting the use of federal funds to purchase or install of such intrusive technologies, with narrow exceptions.

Congressman Eli Crane (AZ-02) and Congressman Andrew Clyde (GA-09) are original cosponsors.

"For decades, Americans' Fourth Amendment rights have been desecrated as government entities adopt increasingly intrusive surveillance technologies. State and local systems now collect vast amounts of data, and federal agencies use that information to bypass warrant requirements and core privacy protections," said Congressman Crane. "To counter these Orwellian tendencies, I'm proud to join Representative Self as an original cosponsor of the PRIVACY Act. This legislation closes these loopholes, limits retention of unrelated data, and restores the constitutional protections owed to every American."

"As the mass surveillance state has drastically expanded and evolved, so too have threats and violations of Americans' constitutional liberties - often in the name of improving public safety. Yet the American people's Fourth Amendment rights have not changed and are not a suggestion; they are law," said Congressman Clyde. "The PRIVACY Act provides critical protections to combat the federal government's dangerous web of warrantless surveillance and data collection, including by devices like Flock cameras. I'm proud to support Rep. Self's legislation, and I remain committed to restoring Americans' Fourth Amendment freedoms amidst the rise of intrusive technologies."

Background:

• Over 6,000 communities in 49 states have installed more than 120,000 Flock, Axon and other manufacturers' cameras that line our roadways and city parks, tracking Americans more than a billion times a day. Add in the other technologies such as electronic tracking of cell tower connections, device emissions and wide-area microphones, no American can avoid the reach of technological tracking.
• The average American driver has their vehicle surveilled 6-8 times a day, allowing AI to determine their driving habits and track their movements, all without the need for a warrant. This allows large nationwide databases to be established to track every American even when they are not suspected of any particular malfeasance.
• The 4^th Amendment protection that Americans would be "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects," a promise that cannot be honored unless federal law enforcement operates with warrant requirements and with limited time for information retention.
• Compromises between 4^th Amendment rights and law enforcement have always been part of the American landscape, but technology cannot be allowed to upset that balance. The Supreme Court has ruled that law enforcement cannot collect months of historical location records for no specific purpose, merely because they might want it later. This act codifies the Supreme Court rulings for federal law enforcement, setting specific bounds.

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