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Bill Could Limit Law Enforcement Access to Data

In Richmond, the Tea Party and the American Civil Liberties Union are joining forces to crack down on what they say are unreasonable search and seizures in the digital age. 

The bipartisan effort is attracting some high-profile support, including former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Waiving his cell phone in the air, Cuccinelli says police agencies and government bureaucrats can collect data from his phone that connects through a cell tower to the trunk of a telephone system.

"If I'm, you know, having one of my many strategy sessions with the ACLU riding down the road, you can track that trunk and you can pretty much tell what road I'm on, and they are getting all of that without a warrant."

Lawmakers are considering legislation that would limit the ability of law-enforcement and regulatory agencies to collect information and build databases without a warrant. 

"So they are putting all this data in there and manipulating it to eventually know more about you than you know about the government."

That's Claire Gastanaga, director of the ACLU of Virginia. 

"And democracy knows best when we know more about the government than the government knows about us."

The bill also creates a seven-day limit for law enforcement agencies to keep information from license plate readers.
 

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