HELENA, Mont. – The newly formed College Republicans at Carroll College hosted their first major event with a bang – bringing in the guy many young people consider the coolest Republican lawmaker in the nation to share the stage with a member of the ACLU.
Not for a debate. It was actually a bipartisan panel on internet privacy rights.
That’s right – the rise of Big Brother has not only brought together typically warring factions, but the Big Sky state is also surprisingly leading the charge against the National Security Agency’s intrusive tactics thanks to state Rep. Daniel Zolnikov, R-Billings, called by some the “face of online privacy rights in the U.S.”
Zolnikov, 26, authored a bill last April to ban cell phone tracking without a search warrant in Montana. It went on to become the first such law like it in the nation, paving the way for other states to follow. Maine followed suit, for example.
Since last spring, Zolnikov has become a national champion for privacy rights, speaking all over the country on this issue. His progressive legislation even came about before Edward Snowden was a household name.
“A government entity may not obtain the location information of an electronic device without a search warrant issued by a duly authorized court,” states the bill, HB 603.
Zolnikov, a young, hip rising star among the Republican ranks who accepts bitcoin political donations alongside cash, was described in a Mashable profile as the lawmaker who “posts his votes on Facebook, has a Russian last name, and a father who was born in Iran. His name is Daniel Zolnikov, and he’s the unlikely politician who sparked a trend that could sweep through the nation.”
That Zolnikov parterned with Niki Zupanic, the Montana Public Policy Director of American Civil Liberties Union, and like-minded Democrats to pass his legislation and make waves in his home state and beyond may just add to his savvy.
The success he achieved was accomplished through bipartisan support, the lawmaker readily acknowledged at the Carroll College panel, held Jan. 21.
“Crossing or ignoring party lines is important on this issue,” Zolnikov said during the panel discussion. “I got to know the other side of the aisle with the legislature.”
Furthermore, Rep. Zolnikov – being from a family descended from Italian and Russian immigrants, believes that history has already given Americans enough warning about the need for privacy from the government, he said. Not only historical examples in Nazi Germany, but also with J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI data collection that essentially controlled people, he said.
“Hoover said once, ‘We want no Gestapo or search police,’ ” Zolnikov noted. “By 1960, the FBI had files on some 432,000 Americans. Hoover used this information to blackmail politicians.”
In Nazi Germany, the government also collected information on their citizens, and Zolnikov compared the collection to what the NSA facility currently has.
“The facility in Stasi Germany had 200 km of files, or 48,000 filing cabinets,” Zolnikov said. “The NSA facility has 42 trillion filing cabinets if they printed all the information.”
Zolnikov said he pursued his landmark legislation beyond constituent concerns because of his desire to live in a country with vibrant free speech and the freedom to act without constraint. He said Americans must pursue more measures to that end.
“People have the right to hide something,” Zolnikov said. “We are self-censoring ourselves and forced to not do anything. We are becoming less free as a result.”
The American Civil Liberties Union has heartily joined with Rep. Zolnikov and other legislators in the state to prevent self censorship and protect Americans’ privacy rights.
“We appreciate not letting the bias get in and working with Representative Zolnikov,” the ACLU’s Zupanic said during the panel.
Zupanic said there has been strong national support to return privacy to the American people, even from those who originally drafted the Patriot Act.
“The reaction in Congress is strong and bi-partisan,” Zupanic said. “Even Representative Sensenbrenner, one of the original authors of the Patriot Act, was alarmed by the broad interpretation of the Patriot Act.”
College Fix contributor Aslinn Scott is a student at the University of Colorado – Boulder.
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