‘Mike Rogers Is Watching You’: New Ad Blitz From Abdul El-Sayed Attacks Surveillance Support
The campaign of Abdul El-Sayed is running an aggressive ad campaign targeting Senate candidate Mike Rogers over his historical support for government surveillance. The ads highlight Rogers' past legislative efforts regarding the Patriot Act and data collection to frame him as a threat to voter privacy.
Why it matters
This highlights how privacy concerns and surveillance technology are becoming central wedge issues in high-stakes US political races.
The paid digital video and billboard ads mark a final-stretch effort ahead of the midterm elections to pin bipartisan voter anxieties about privacy concerns, recently spurred by Flock cameras, onto Rogers.
The video from the El-Sayed campaign intersperses clips of Rogers praising the Patriot Act of 2001, which, in addition to expanding law enforcement powers, also allowed the collection of Americans' telephone data without a warrant after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Rogers’ career is dotted with support for government surveillance over the years, including in 2011, when Rogers introduced a bill that would have allowed companies to share emails with the NSA. (However, in 2014, Rogers introduced a bill that would have ended “bulk collection of metadata,” though it never made it to a vote.)
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