What the plan covers
✓A real national privacy law
✓Get a warrant
✓Rein in data brokers
✓Location tracking & targeted ads
✓Medical & reproductive privacy
✓Facial recognition
✓Your phone, face & fingerprint
✓Your car’s data
✓Your DNA
✓Kids online
✓The Privacy Act of 1974
By the numbers
82%
In 2022 more than eight in ten Montanans, left and right, voted to write digital privacy into our state constitution. That is not a partisan idea here; it is a Montana value.Montana Constitution, C-48 (2022)
2013
Montana was the first state in the country to require a warrant for your location, in 2013, five years before the Supreme Court reached the same conclusion.ACLU; Montana Code 46-5-112
Only G20
The United States is the only G20 nation with no national privacy law, so your data gets bought and sold by companies you have never heard of, and the rules change every time you cross a state line.Congressional Research Service; IAPP
747× a day
The average American’s location is auctioned to advertisers about 747 times a day, to roughly 4,700 firms cleared to receive it, most of them companies you will never see.Irish Council for Civil Liberties
Get a warrant
The government is buying your location and phone records from data brokers instead of going to a judge, information that can show who walked into a clinic, a church, or a protest.FTC; EFF
60 billion
Clearview AI scraped 60 billion faces off the internet to sell the government a search engine for people.Bloomberg Law
14 million
General Motors sold the driving data of about 14 million cars to insurers without clear consent, so how you drive quietly became a factor in your rates.FTC (GM/OnStar, 2025)
15 million
When 23andMe went bankrupt, the DNA of fifteen million people went up for auction, with no federal law to stop it.Scientific American; Lawfare
1 database
In 2025 Washington tried to merge your tax records, your Social Security file, and more into a single database on every American, drawing more than a dozen lawsuits.Congressional Research Service; Brookings
In her words
Montana figured this out before almost anyone. We were the first state to make the government get a warrant for your location, and in 2022 more than eight in ten of us, left and right, voted to write digital privacy right into our constitution. That is not a partisan idea here; it is a Montana value. Your life is your own.
But Washington never caught up. We are the only major country on earth with no national privacy law, so your data gets bought and sold by companies you have never heard of, and the rules change every time you cross a state line. That is backwards, and it leaves most Americans with no protection at all.
Here is the one that gets to me. I believe in the warrant. Right now the government is skipping it, buying your location and your phone records from data brokers instead of going to a judge, information that can show who walked into a clinic, a church, or a protest. If the government wants that, it can get a warrant, the same as I always had to.
And privacy has to mean your medical privacy. It is not the government’s business to track a woman’s cycle to build a case against her, or to sift through your data to decide who might be transgender. What passes between you and your doctor is yours. In all my years in law enforcement, the only thing that ever justified crossing that line was a genuine danger to yourself or someone else. Short of that, the government stays out of it.
And when Washington finally acts, it has to lift every state up to Montana’s level, not drag Montana down to it. There are people in Congress pushing a national standard that would quietly erase strong state protections like ours. I will never trade away what Montanans already put in our constitution for a weaker federal deal.
The surveillance keeps finding new doors. Free apps auction where you are, hundreds of times a day, to advertisers you will never see. Your car reports how you drive to your insurer. Companies scrape billions of faces off the internet so the government can search them. Courts are actually arguing over whether police can force your own thumb onto your phone. And in Washington they tried to merge your tax records, your Social Security file, and more into one giant database on every American. The tools change; the principle does not. It is your life, and you decide who sees it.
This runs deeper than most people realize. Our kids are the product; platforms track and monetize them from the start. And when a company that holds your DNA goes bankrupt, that genetic code should never go up for auction. Your data is yours. Your kids’ data is theirs. Your genetic code is nobody’s asset but your own, and I will write that into law.
What Alani will do
A national floor, built on Montana
✓Pass a real national privacy law: one clear standard built on Montana’s, the right to see, correct, delete, and take your data, and to opt out of it being sold, so your protection does not depend on your zip code.
✓Make it a floor, never a ceiling: a national law must lift every state up, and never override the stronger privacy protections Montanans already wrote into our constitution, or stop any state from going further.
✓Your data, your yes: require clear, affirmative consent before a company collects, sells, or shares your sensitive data, no more burying it in the fine print the way your own car maker did when it sold how you drive to your insurer.
✓Your phone is not a tracking beacon: end the hidden real-time auction that broadcasts where you are to thousands of companies, require a real opt-in before any app tracks your location for ads, and make saying no as easy as one tap.
Get a warrant, for your data and your body
✓Get a warrant: pass the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act so no agency can buy from a data broker what the Constitution says it needs a warrant to get.
✓Your body is not a password: your fingerprint and your face should get the same protection as your passcode, so the government cannot force you to unlock your own phone without a warrant.
✓Rein in facial recognition: stop companies from scraping billions of our faces off the internet to build a government-searchable dragnet, and require a warrant before the government runs your face.
✓Modernize and enforce the Privacy Act of 1974 so the government cannot quietly merge your tax records, your Social Security file, and more into one master database on every American, and can be held accountable when it tries.
Your most private self
✓Ban the sale of your most sensitive data: your precise location, especially around health clinics, places of worship, and protests, along with your health, genetic, and biometric data. No more auctioning off your DNA.
✓Protect your medical privacy: bar the government and data brokers from using your reproductive, menstrual, gender, or health data to surveil, prosecute, or out you. What is between you and your doctor is nobody else’s business, short of a genuine danger to yourself or others.
✓Protect kids online: pass COPPA 2.0-style protections, default-private settings for minors, and an end to targeting ads at children.
Make it real
✓Rein in the data brokers: license and audit the shadow industry that buys, sells, and consolidates your life, with real FTC enforcement and penalties that actually bite.
✓Give it teeth: back genuine enforcement and accountability when companies break the rules, because a right you cannot enforce is not a right.
Sources: Montana Constitution, C-48 (2022); ACLU and Montana Code 46-5-112 (first-in-nation location warrant); Congressional Research Service; IAPP; Irish Council for Civil Liberties (real-time-bidding report); FTC (X-Mode/Outlogic and InMarket, 2024; Gravy Analytics/Venntel and Mobilewalla, 2024; GM/OnStar, 2025); EFF; Bloomberg Law (Clearview AI settlement, 2025); Scientific American and Lawfare (23andMe bankruptcy, 2025); Brookings; IAPP (KOSA and COPPA 2.0). Bills are named as introduced; status shifts each Congress.