Members of the Virginia General Assembly will be returning to the Capitol next week, and they'll be considering an important gubernatorial amendment about surveillance.
How long should law enforcement agencies be able to keep records on when your vehicle was at the grocery store or on the way to the gym or maybe at an abortion clinic? Members of the General Assembly say it should be 21 days, although the governor amended that to 30 days. Chris Kaiser at the ACLU says he’s willing to accept 21 as a compromise but 30 is just too much.
"A week matters. It may not be a panacea, and that's certainly why we would have preferred the retention period to be capped at seven days. But 21 is significantly better protection against that risk than 30," Kaiser says. "And in this current scenario, it's also inseparable from the fact that these amendments also allow for unlimited expansion onto interstate highways, which is a huge concern."
Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell says the Senate never really debated the retention time, and he hopes Democrats who control the General Assembly will agree with the Republican governor.
"From my perspective, the opponents of this legislation are being self-destructive. Right now, there are absolutely no rules on these things whatsoever. Anybody can access them. Anybody can look at them. The data can be sold or transferred to anyone," Surovell explains. "And if anybody wants restrictions on this, they need to vote for the governor's amendments or they're going to get nothing."
The General Assembly can either accept the governor's version of the bill or reject it altogether when they reconvene next week.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
