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Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) recently blocked a legislative effort designed to broaden essential data privacy safeguards, which are currently afforded to federal lawmakers and public officials, to every individual across the United States. This move has ignited significant discussion concerning digital rights and equitable online security for all Americans.
On a recent Monday evening, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) sought unanimous consent from his colleagues in the U.S. Senate for his proposed legislation, known as S.2850, or the Protecting Americans from Doxing and Political Violence Act.
Wyden’s bill aimed to adopt bipartisan-supported provisions that shield government officials, lawmakers, and their families from having their sensitive personal information sold or traded by data brokers. If passed, these crucial protections would have been extended to every American and person residing in the United States, enhancing their digital privacy rights.
“Members of Congress should not receive special treatment,” Senator Wyden declared on the Senate floor. He emphasized, “Our constituents deserve protection from violence, stalking, and other criminal threats.” Wyden further asserted, according to the congressional record, that “Protecting everyone is the most effective way to protect U.S. military and intelligence personnel, including undercover officers.”
Senator Cruz was the sole senator to object to the bill’s passage. He claimed, without providing specific evidence, that Wyden’s legislation could disrupt vital law enforcement operations, citing examples such as “knowing where sexual predators are living.”
The core of this legislative debate involves data brokers, a worldwide multibillion-dollar industry. These companies profit from collecting, hoarding, and selling access to vast quantities of Americans’ personal, financial, and highly granular location information, often gathered from phones and other internet-connected devices. This extensive data is then sold, including to various governments, which frequently do not require a warrant for commercially obtainable data.
The accumulation of such immense data banks inherently carries significant risks, including security lapses and data breaches. Information procured by data brokers has been used in doxing incidents, where individuals’ private details are publicly exposed, leading to harassment and even violence. In tragic recent cases, this data has been linked to the shooting of two Minnesota state lawmakers, one of whom died, with the alleged assailant reportedly obtaining their home addresses from data brokers.
Senator Cruz also objected to a second piece of legislation introduced by Wyden shortly after, S.2851. This subsequent bill aimed to extend the privacy protections for federal officials and lawmakers to include state officials, their staff, and significantly, survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. In response, Cruz stated that he was “interested in expanding the protection to as wide a universe as is feasible, as is practicable, but that answer is not yet worked out.”
The recent Senate actions underscore ongoing tensions between individual digital privacy rights, public safety concerns, and the largely unregulated operations of the data broker industry. The struggle to establish comprehensive data protection and online safety legislation for all Americans continues to be a central point of congressional debate.