Kelsey Smith Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. YODER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life and legacy of Kelsey Ann Smith of Overland Park, Kansas. I rise today on behalf of Kelsey's Army, people all across the country who have put themselves in the shoes of Greg and Missey, who have also had children who have been abducted and understand that we need commonsense public safety laws like this on the books to ensure that we can save lives and ensure that these types of abductions and murders never happen again in our country without the ability to stop them as quickly as possible.

June 6, 2016, will mark 9 years since Kelsey Smith, an 18-year-old Shawnee Mission West student, was kidnapped in broad daylight from a Target parking lot by a predator who would sexually assault and murder her soon after. I remember it like it was yesterday. We all, in Kansas and in my community, felt immediately associated with the grief and pain that Kelsey's parents were feeling. Parents worried about their own children. They understood what was happening, and they wanted to help.

So Kansans and people in my community helped search for Kelsey for days. As Chairman Walden so eloquently spoke in favor of this bill, it is an anguish to have your child be missing and you cannot do anything about it.

Kelsey's mother, Missey, says that when your child is missing, as a parent you don't eat and as a parent you don't sleep because you don't know if your child is eating or sleeping. I am a father of two little girls. I cannot imagine the pain and suffering Missey and her husband, Greg, who are with us here today, have endured from Kelsey's loss. No parent should have to.

So today we are going to hear different debates and arguments about how the bill could be changed or improved or differences could be made, but the reality is this law is not on the books in 28 States, and those children are not protected. We cannot, as a House, allow this to stand.

So I ask my colleagues to dig deep in their heart to think about putting themselves in their shoes and to not block this legislation, to let this legislation come forward. I promise you it is popular in your district. I promise you a majority of Americans will support this. Opposing this bill is simply wrong and shameful.

In the 9 years since Greg and Missey's daughter was taken from them, they have dealt with this unspeakable, horrific experience with grace and determination. Rather than falling into the depths of despair, like anyone could imagine them to do, they channeled their grief into the passion to help others who find themselves in Kelsey's situation. They traveled the United States fighting to pass State-level versions of the bill we are considering today, and they have done so with great success, with 23 States having passed a version of the Kelsey Smith Act.

Today, this body will have the chance to honor Kelsey's memory and Greg and Missey's tireless advocacy by bringing the law to all 50 States. In the words of Missey Smith, we have the rare opportunity to ``save lives without it costing one cent.''

The Kelsey Smith Act creates a narrow exception for law enforcement officers to gain access to limited call location information of an individual's cell phone in the event of an emergency, like a kidnapping. In those cases, every second counts.

Unfortunately, in Kelsey's case, it took 4 excruciating days for law enforcement to finally obtain the location data from her cell provider. It took 4 days while an entire community searched for Kelsey with no success. It took 4 days because, under current law, providers are not required to provide location data. They are permitted to in an emergency situation, but it is up to their discretion.

So the question for this body is: Do you want to leave this up to a cell phone provider, for the lawyers and the executives there to decide, or do you want trained law enforcement making this decision based upon a reasonable belief of an exigent emergency circumstance?

It is analogous; I think we all would agree. I think the folks on the opposite side of the aisle would agree that there is certainly a Fourth Amendment right to protect your home and your dwelling, probably the greatest Fourth Amendment protection right of all. And yet, if an officer was driving by and saw an exigent circumstance, saw someone who was in jeopardy of physical harm or emergency, they have the ability to break into that home to save that life.

This information is even less secure. It is much more in the public domain. A cell phone provider already has the right to release it. We are saying that decision should be made by law enforcement.

What breaks my heart every time I recount Kelsey's story is, when finally her cell phone location information was handed over, police found Kelsey's body within 45 minutes. A search that floundered for 4 days could have ended in 45 minutes. We know for a fact, as Chairman Walden articulated, that other lives have already been saved in States that have adopted this law.

Mr. Speaker, a Federal framework is needed to save lives across the entire country, not just in a patchwork of States that have adopted this bill. It is up to this body to set that framework, which would be a ceiling for State legislatures to follow. If certain States feel that additional privacy protections, such as suggested by my colleagues across the aisle, must be put into place, they are well within their jurisdiction to do so.

I believe any concerns articulated by others are overblown in this situation. As someone who has spent my career in this body fighting for the privacy rights of Americans--we just passed the Email Privacy Act 419-0, and all of us supported that--and fought to modernize our Fourth Amendment rights with regard to email privacy, I feel comfortable in saying this bill strikes the right balance. It does not give you the information on the phone. It does not give you content. It does not give you anything other than the pings on the phone in the case of an emergency. It doesn't even give you GPS tracking. It does not infringe upon our constitutional rights. Any of us, as parents, would be thankful that we voted for this bill today, should something horrific happen in our lives.

Mr. Speaker, this body often debates the merits of protecting Americans from the threat of harm versus giving up certain civil liberties. In this case, we are blessed with modern technology that affords law enforcement with a tool to save lives without Americans giving up any of their privacy.

Now, I thank my predecessor, Representative Dennis Moore, and my former colleague, Todd Tiahrt of Kansas, who began this effort shortly after Kelsey's death. I also thank Representatives Lynn Jenkins, Mike Pompeo of Kansas, and my colleague from across the aisle, Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, who have worked with me in this fight. I also thank Chairman Upton and Chairman Walden for working swiftly over the last month to move this important legislation forward.

Most of all, I would like to thank the two most important people in this room, who advocated for this bill day after day, Greg and Missey Smith. But for their support and guidance, for their ability to share their tragedy with the world and channel it into goodness, for being here today and throughout the entire legislative process as we moved this bill forward, this movement would not be possible. So God bless you, Greg and Missey, and God bless Kelsey.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the bill's passage today. I strongly urge the Senate to waste no time in following suit. Let's send Kelsey's law to the President's desk this year for his signature so we can do something truly meaningful in a bipartisan way and so we can save lives.

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