El-Sayed Turns Michigan Senate Race Into Referendum on Surveillance

The attack centers on a 2013 congressional hearing where Rogers, then chair of the House Intelligence Committee, dismissed privacy concerns following Edward Snowden’s revelations about NSA bulk data collection. When confronted by law professor Stephen Vladeck about the ethics of secret surveillance, Rogers famously retorted: "You can't have your privacy violated if you don't know your privacy is violated."

El-Sayed is leveraging this record to contrast his own platform against the current expansion of digital policing. With the Trump administration utilizing AI-driven tools and partnerships with private firms like Palantir to monitor dissent, El-Sayed argues that the government must be strictly barred from warrantless surveillance. Rogers has recently attempted to pivot, stating it is "wrong" for the FBI to conduct warrantless searches of citizens, yet he has stopped short of advocating for the repeal of surveillance statutes like Section 702.

Critics argue this shift is purely performative. Since leaving Congress, Rogers has built a lucrative career advising cybersecurity and government-contracting firms. Reports indicate he served as a security adviser to AT&T while the company provided law enforcement access to massive volumes of phone records and consulted for a firm that aided the Maduro regime in Venezuela with domestic spying. Journalist Spencer Ackerman, who tracked Rogers’ tenure during the War on Terror, recently noted that the candidate’s history reveals a consistent preference for impunity over constitutional protections.