A county sheriff in Florida has a problem. Every time he gets close to identifying the suspected child predator behind an anonymous Internet profile, the Internet service provider tips off the suspect.
“You have a sex predator say that’s using a certain IP address to contact minors, maybe entice them,” Rep. Ron DeSantis told the Washington Examiner. “You can subpoena that and get that information. But what happens is that the Internet service provider that provides the information will then turn around immediately and will let the suspected predator know that that IP address, for example, has been requested by law enforcement.”
Justice Department investigators confirmed that they face the same problem, so the Florida Republican has offered an apparently simple solution: He has introduced the Targeting Child Predators Act. It says that when law enforcement officials are seeking the identity of the predator behind some anonymous online profile and issue a subpoena for the IP address, companies have to wait six months before notifying the owner of the account.
That will deprive suspects of “the ability to wipe their hard drives and cover their tracks” while law enforcement investigates the case. “The subpoena authority has not changed. All we’re doing is just delaying the notification so that if there is somebody who is presenting a danger to minors, then we have a chance to investigate it, and they’re not tipped off too soon,” he said.
It’s a bill that might raise civil liberties concerns. DeSantis acknowledges that the Internet service providers have a “laudable” desire to protect their customers, but he thinks the bill is well-designed and would have a narrow impact on privacy rights.
That’s because the law he’s trying to change, as it is, only applies to child sexual abuse cases and healthcare fraud, of all things. Practically speaking, the legislation wouldn’t even have much of an effect on the healthcare fraud, according to DeSantis.
“If there is healthcare fraud being committed, it’s committed,” he said. “With child sex abuse, obviously, you’re looking at stopping predators from committing future crimes.”
DeSantis emphasized that his legislation doesn’t eliminate the need for a search warrant. It just gives law enforcement time to find out who they need to search.
“If you’re [trying to search] email traffic, that would be something that the content would require a probable cause search,” he said. “If you identify somebody’s IP address and you’re able to link that to certain online activity and you identify the individual, then a next rational step may very well be to get a search warrant for the contents of someone’s communication or computer.”
The legislation has 12 co-sponsors, including GOP heavy-hitters such as House Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., the former prosecutor currently leading the House’s special investigation of the Benghazi terrorist attacks.
DeSantis is perhaps most encouraged by the support of Rep. Scott Peters, a California Democrat who sits on the Judiciary Committee. If they can build on that support, the legislation might have a shot at clearing the House and Senate.
“If we can get the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee on board, that’s a pretty good sign that we can get pretty strong Democratic support in the Senate, because the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee are much more liberal than even the average Democrat in the House,” he said.
He doesn’t have much time to waste: cCme August, everyone will know if DeSantis has won or lost his bid to be the Republican nominee to replace outgoing Sen. Marco Rubio.
