Brian Darling | Opinion
This an open letter to the many politicians seeking to be the next President of the United States. I would like you to promise “hope and change” for those of us who are sick of politicians (in both parties) trampling on our right to privacy.
I am a former staffer for Senator Rand Paul. I share his passion for privacy and his rage that Americans’ right to be private in communications has been violated by the federal government. The Bill of Rights is not optional. It recognizes every Granite Staters’ natural right to be free from a bureaucrat listening to phone calls and/or collecting a list of people you called.
I am also a former staffer for Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire. I grew up a few miles from New Hampshire in the Peoples’ Republic of Massachusetts. I spent summers at the beach in NH and winters skiing in the White Mountains. I understand that the people of New Hampshire treasure freedom more than most.
I ask that candidates for President take a look at the Law Enforcement Access to Data Stored Abroad Act, or LEADS Act. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah and Democrat Chris Coons of Delaware introduced this legislation. The bill puts lead on the target of privacy by setting parameters for the government to have access to information they need in a criminal investigation.
Right now, when you send an email, there is a good chance that some of that data gets stored outside the United States. The LEADS Act would make sure that an American citizens data does not lose privacy protections when the data is stored abroad.
It also serves an important purpose for law enforcement. Michael Chertoff wrote in USA Today that “the current law that governs electronic surveillance of emails is known as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). When it was enacted in 1986, iPads didn’t exist. Windows 1.0 was Microsoft’s operating system. Indeed, the Internet was still a novelty.” He is a former Secretary of Homeland Security and recognizes that certainty in the law is necessary to effectuate the serving of a court secured warrant for information in a criminal investigation.
Chertoff argued that when “the ECPA was written to treat most email like a conversation and it adopted the premise that any email older than 180 days had to be of little practical value in which no privacy interest existed.” The LEADS Act would make it clear that emails older than 180 days are no less private than those under 180 days. In other words the same standards to secure a warrant apply to emails regardless of how long they have been in digital storage.
This is an issue that should pique the interest of Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte and Democrat Jeanne Shaheen. This should interest Reps. Ann McLane Kuster and Republican Frank Guinta. This is not a partisan issue at all.
In short, when Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz all come to New Hampshire, they need to be asked where they are on privacy and what they are going to do to protect it.
Brian Darling served as Sr. Communications Director and Counsel for Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) from 2012-15. Before his tenure with Sen. Paul, Darling served in three different capacities with The Heritage Foundation. Follow him @BrianHDarling on Twitter.
