REP. STEVEN HOLT 8/11/2026 THE SIMON CONWAY SHOW

Across the great state of Iowa, it is the Simon Conway show. Mrs. C has blown up the text line. Oh, my goodness. Okay, I have made a mistake. I have been corrected by no less than three people, one of them being my father in Florida. Plus another six on text line. I'm sure. I made a mistake, y'all. Believe it or not, I'm not perfect. Buckees does not allow semi-truck drivers. Only RVs up to a certain size. I was wrong. Uh-huh. But I still hold out hope that one day, Simon, will let me rent an RV so we can go on the road and stop with Buckies. Uh-huh. Okay, you're going to send me the audio where it says I was wrong? No, I am not. Okay, I was just checking. This is one of the perks of controlling this side of the glass. Simon, something I would have bet a million dollars I wouldn't hear you say today on the radio. Buckees has sour gummy worms that don't stick to your tea. Yes. All right, we're going to live. Okay, we've got to get serious now, my friend. Buck is serious eating, apparently, but we've got to get serious, serious. We've been talking about flock cameras for a few days now. The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee is Representative Stephen Holt. Hi, you doing, Bub. Good, Simon. How are you doing? Absolutely fantastic. Now, I just want to point out, flock is a brand like Hoover is a brand of vacuum. We talked to you about it yesterday. The city of Des Moines, for example, has Motorola. So everyone calls them flock cameras, but it's just like saying, hey, go Hoover the house. So anyway, there you go. That's what that is. That's it. So I am... My, I am very much in favor of the Fourth Amendment, my friend. And so that part of me is like, yeah, this is a real intrusion. But I said on the radio yesterday, and I meant it with every single breath in my body, that if you had a kid that has been taken, you want a thousand cameras looking for your kid. And I would. Exactly. So what is the legislature going to do at all? Well, I wish I could answer that. We had legislation. I can't tell you the number right now, but we had legislation last year or last session. We worked on the entire session trying to get to a point of compromise. So you had folks on one side, and I kind of have my foot in both camps. I mean, I'm very concerned about privacy, trying to protect data. And then at the same time, I understand from talking to law enforcement how valuable these cameras are in solving thousands and thousands of crimes and rescuing children. Those things simply cannot be discounted. So what we were, you know, what the legislation was going to do was it was going to very much limit who had access to the information, where it could be, how long it could be kept, all of these things, and not going to allow it to be overseas, all of these type of things. But you've got a group of individuals who want to ban them all together. You've got individuals somewhere in the middle and you've got... You know, as law enforcement said to me, you know, guys, we understand, they also understand 100% the security concerns. But as they also said to me, please don't make us bring a knife to a gunfight because the bad guys are using a lot of technology these days. And so we have to be very, very careful. So we're trying to find, you know, that sweet spot. And we didn't find it last session. I mean, we just could not come. We had a bill.

We were trying to get done. We were trying to compromise here and compromise there. It ended up at the end. It just didn't suit anybody. We didn't. We weren't able to advance. Obviously, we're going to try to get into the coming session. It's a growing concern for a lot of folks. So we're going to try to find that compromise position that allows law enforcement to use it in legitimate function that they have to have it for while at the same time protecting privacy. So that's where we're at. Right, and it is definitely problematic from the point of view of it's obviously an invasion about privacy. There's obviously across the country we've had some bad police officers misusing it, but they are a very, very small minority. That is important that we point that as well. So we've had that going on. But as I said, how do you not want that technology if your kid's been taken? That's exactly right. And there was a situation. I mean, I saw the information where there's a particular area in Des Moines where they were having a lot of property crimes. They were solving almost none of them. And when these license plate reader cameras came into being, they were able to solve something like three-quarters of the property crimes in this particular area. So they definitely have a huge impact on giving law enforcement the ability to solve crimes. Like you said, it's a tiny, tiny amount of people that abuse it, but one is too many. And so we've got to figure out how to properly safeguard people's privacy and their ways to do it. There's also some misconceptions on how they're used and what data they gather. But, you know, our legislation was going to limit how long they could hold the data, had to be, you know, very, very specific on what they were gathering it for and what they could use it for and they could not. you know like people are concerned about people's pictures of people's faces being taken all of these type things none of that was going to be allowed so it was it was pretty strong regulation unfortunately it just wasn't enough for some and it was too much for others and so we just weren't able to get there we'll keep trying uh okay so you're going to keep trying uh and see if you can find a way to regulate them but if you're going to do it right it needs to be meaningful otherwise it's pointless right Absolutely. We don't want just words on a piece of paper that don't actually change anything. Right. So, yeah, so that's also a problem. I guess. So that's the challenge is to make it meaningful while at the same time for continuing to have the tool up able to law enforcement that they can use in an expeditious manner when they're trying to locate a child and when they're trying to solve a crime that, you know, time sensitive, that sort of thing. So that's the, that's the challenge of it and we can get there. It's just a matter of finally getting to that compromise point. And, you know, I'm sure when we finally get there.

You usually know you've got in the right spot when nobody on either side likes it. And that's probably where we're going to end up thinking that law enforcement isn't going entirely like what we do. And the folks on the other side are going to entirely like what we do either. That's probably where we're going to end up. So the other thing I found out yesterday, which maybe is something you guys can address as well. Iowa does not have silver alerts. We're used to seeing silver alerts in Florida. This is basically elderly people that go missing and maybe they have a little bit of dementia. Maybe they shouldn't be driving and they've driven off somewhere and nobody knows where they are. Why don't we have silver alerts? Well, there's silver alerts. There's also alerts related to military. I can remember when we tried to do those a few years ago. Yep, April was involved in that. some of the unintended consequences we ran into, that there were even some veterans groups concerned about the military alert, because for an example, you put out an alert on somebody and they're perfectly fine, and how does that impact their mental health if they're going to PTSD? There were a lot of concerned veterans groups brought up about that issue. I don't recall, to be honest with you, Simon, I don't recall a lot of discussion on the Silver Alert issue. That's certainly something we can look at. But with the military ones, there was concerned that if it was incorrectly called, how it might impact the mental health. of the individual. So there were some pretty big concerns from the veterans groups on that one. And there may be similar concerns on the silver alert. And there was also concern about how many alerts are we going to have, and we're going to get to a point where there's just too many. But I definitely think with what you're talking about on the silver alert with somebody that's maybe having memory issues or what have you. would definitely be something that would be viable in protecting folks. So that's something we definitely need to look at, I think. All right. You know we have a text line here. I'm going to read you three of them. Maybe those cameras should only be on when they're actually looking for someone, not just watching everyone willy-nilly all the time. Another texter says, those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety, said Ben Franklin. And Alan says, so really they are public surveillance cameras. How many of our rights need to fall? in the name of security. And that's a good thing. But as I say, if any one of those people, if they had a small child who was taken, they would want double, triple, quadruple the number of cameras to locate that child. That's what they would want. Yeah. If they're honest. As an example, the person that said, just have more when you're looking for somebody. Well, you don't know when you're going to need to be looking for somebody. So if they're not on, in fact, you might in fact miss that license plate that,

has abducted a child or what have you. So it's just not as simple as folks want it to be. It's that simple. On the issue of, you know, I really like the quote that was given about, you know, Liberty versus the... Yeah, Ben Franklin. And I get that. But just like what you said, Simon, if it's your child, I mean, it's just, I wish it was as simple as the, you know, the... the black and white statements make it to be. But there's a lot of law enforcement tools today. Let's face it. There's a lot of law enforcement tools today that, you know, you could argue really infringe upon our privacy. So we're going to have to reach a point of making, you know, some hard decisions on how far is far enough and how much is too much. I mean, it's just that simple when it comes to our freedom and our liberty. So I understand the concerns 100%. I don't disagree with them at all. Not at all. Right. That's the issue, and that's going to be the issue facing the legislature as well, obviously. All right. Stephen Holt is the chair of the House Judiciary Committee. I think you begin to understand that it's not as easy as say, well, this should be simple. Hey, it's our Fourth Amendment rights. Yeah, well, you know. I wish it was. Yeah, it's not that simple. You've got to build a majority to get it through and headed to the governor's desk. And we're just talking about the House. who knows what the Senate would do with it. And then you've got to get it on the governor's desk. And that'll be the next governor, who knows who that's going to be. And so you're probably going to have to negotiate with the next governor as well. Yeah, absolutely, 100%. Yeah. That's exactly correct. And who knows? what their position is going to be, we'll see. But in any event, it is a legitimate issue. There's a lot of privacy concerns with so much technology these days. It's just unbelievable. But you also know if you watch any, you know, if you listen to any crime junkie television or podcasts or if you listen to any of these crime shows, you also know how many crimes are solved today because of this technology. And so it's... And I understand the concern what was said about the safety versus the freedom and liberty. I get that. But there have been a lot of law enforcement tools for a lot of years that you could argue, you know, infringe on liberty. And we just have to make a decision on how far we're willing to go and where we're going to draw the line. Stephen Holt, always a pleasure, sir. And, you know, because we know each other so well, I sometimes forget to thank you for wearing the cloth of our nation. But thank you. You know that's sincere for me. Absolutely, sir. And God bless you. You take care. Say hi to your lovely wife. It's a great day. Yeah, you too. Yeah, thank you. All right. Now then, my friends, it's the summer. It's the fair this week. The fair happens once a year. I think I might start a thing. Maybe we should have two fairs a year. I don't know, maybe. But one thing I know that you shouldn't do just once a year, and that's, you know, here. Uh-huh. If you have an untreated hearing loss, you know you have an untreated hearing loss through the month of August. There are 31 days in this month. All the way to the end of August, my friends at Audio Nova are offering up $2,200 in savings on their premier hearing devices and...

Also, a TV connector. That means you can play the audio from your TV straight into your ears. You do not have to have the volume booming and annoying everybody else in the family. Anymore, your TV can even be on mute in actual fact. Audio Nova has 13 clinics throughout the state of Iowa. If you go to IowaHearing.com, it's going to bring them up on a screen. Click the one nearest you, and it is going to produce a phone number. You can call them. Yeah, you can. And you can make your appointment for your totally 100% free, no obligation whatsoever hearing test at Audio Nova. And you want to do that. If you have an untreated hearing loss, you want to treat it, because if you leave it untreated, you're four to five times more likely to develop some form of dementia. Why would you do that if you could avoid it? That's the part I don't understand. So anyway, it all starts online. Go and get yourself some Simon pricing. Tell him you want what Simon has, what I have literally in my ear, right now as I'm talking to you with headphones over the top. There is no feedback whatsoever. So go and get hold of them and at least do that hearing test so you know exactly what it is that you're dealing with. IowaHearing.com. That's right. Iowahearing.com. Go to Iowahearing.com and tell them Simon Sancho.