Protecting the right to privacy in the age of surveillance

As we enter the 250th year since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, certain conversations between the founders remain highly relevant to challenges we face today. When considering the appropriate balance between civil liberties and safety, Benjamin Franklin stated, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

America reinforced the importance of personal liberty, privacy and protection from government intrusion through the passage of the Fourth Amendment. The founders placed protections against unreasonable searches in the Fourth Amendment because of their experiences with redcoats tossing apart homes in search of Patriots. Today, reverse warrants are being used as a modern, digital equivalent.

Reverse warrants use two types of data: 1. Location information transmitted by our devices, often automatically without our intent or knowledge, and 2. The information we enter into search engines online. This creates an eerie, Big Brother situation where the government places people under public scrutiny without any specific suspicion of wrongdoing. 

When people use Uber to visit locations that are in the vicinity of a Planned Parenthood, should all their ride data be combed on the chance they might be seeking reproductive healthcare? 

When a store is robbed, should the government be able to surveil the hundreds of nearby people whose phones ping solely because they were passing by that store? 

Reverse warrants are an assault on the Fourth Amendment, as they subject large swaths of innocent people to unnecessary and intrusive surveillance without just cause.

This is not a partisan issue. Organizations like the Caesar Rodney Institute and the American Civil Liberties Union both supported ending the use of this unconstitutional practice. Whether one is conservative, liberal or somewhere in between, excessive government surveillance impacts everyone, especially in this modern world that requires almost all of us to interact with digital devices. 

I am proud to sponsor House Bill 145, which would end the use of reverse warrants in Delaware.

The decision Delaware makes regarding reverse warrants has impacts reaching both inside and outside of our state. Our state is the corporate home for the majority of the country’s largest tech and data companies, including the parent companies of Google, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Chat GPT, Uber, Lyft, and now TikTok. That means states seeking data from these companies can come to Delaware to serve a reverse warrant, including conduct that isn’t even illegal here. 

The passage of HB 145 will be a return to the values our founders enshrined in the Bill of Rights, and will also ensure Delaware does not aid the efforts of states that criminalize conduct that Delawareans value and support, like free political speech and protest, the right to bear arms, abortion care, gender-affirming care and protecting our immigrant neighbors.