Unanimous Consent Request -- S. 2952

Floor Speech

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Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Oregon, Senator Wyden, for talking about this important issue on the floor today.

We shop online with our credit cards, order medicine with our electronic health care records, talk to friends, share personal information, Skype, post beliefs and photos on social media, or Snapchat fun moments, all the while believing everything is safe and secure. It is more important now than ever to ensure that the information we store on our devices is kept safe and that our right to privacy is protected, and that is what we are really talking about here today. How can we ensure that our information is both safe and secure from hacking and government surveillance?

Certainly technology has made our lives easier, but it has also made it easier for criminals to commit crimes and evade law enforcement. In short, our laws aren't keeping up with 21st-century technology advances. But the government's solution to this problem we are talking about today, the change to rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, represents a major policy shift in the way the government investigates cyber crime. This proposed solution essentially gives the government a blank check to infringe upon our civil liberties. The change greatly expands the hacking power of the Federal Government, allowing the search of potentially millions of Americans' devices with a single warrant. What this means is that the victims of hacks could be hacked again by their very own government.

You would think such a drastic policy change that directly impacts our Fourth Amendment right would need to come before Congress. It would need to have a hearing and be heard before the American people with full transparency. But, in fact, we have had no hearings. There has been no real debate on this issue.
My colleagues and I have introduced bipartisan, bicameral legislation to stop the rule change and ensure that the American people have a voice. The American people deserve transparency, and Congress needs time to review this policy to ensure that the privacy rights of Americans are protected.

The fact that the Department of Justice is insisting this rule change take effect on December 1--that is tonight at midnight--frankly, should send a shiver down the spines of all Americans.

My colleagues and I are here today to not only wake up Americans to this great expansion of powers by our government but also to urge our colleagues to join this bipartisan effort to stop rule 41 changes without duly considering the impact to our civil liberties. Our civil liberties and our Fourth Amendment can be chipped away little by little until we barely recognize them anymore. We simply can't give unlimited power for unlimited hacking which puts Americans' civil liberties at risk.

Again, I thank my colleagues from Delaware and Oregon for joining me here today, and I yield to my friend and colleague from Delaware, Senator Coons.

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