AG Fox Joins Effort to Protect Safety of Federal Judges

Nearly every state Attorney General in the U.S. has joined in an effort to support legislation to protect federal judges and their families from potential violence.

Montana’s outgoing Attorney General Tim Fox told KGVO News on Monday that he has signed on to the legislation.

“Since 1979, there have been numerous federal District Court and Circuit Court judges who've been targeted and murdered just for doing their job essentially by deranged people, and most recently, not only the judges at risk, but their families and loved ones as well,” said Fox. “Earlier this year, a young man by the name of Daniel Anderel, who was the son of a federal District Court Judge that a deranged man who came to their home looking for the judge, shot both the young man and his father, but the father survived.”

Fox described the effort to protect the judges.

“I’m joining a group of 51% Attorneys General, both state and territorial Attorneys General across the country, in a letter that we sent this past week, urging Congress to pass legislation to protect the safety of federal judges and their families. It's called the Daniel Anderel Judicial Security and Privacy Act,” he said.

Fox described some of the specifics of the legislation.

“It requires federal agencies to keep the confidentiality of judges’ personally identifiable information upon that judge’s request,” he said. “It authorizes funding for state and local governments to adopt similar measures, and it prohibits dot com data brokers from selling, selling or otherwise distributing the information that's available about these judges.”

Fox said he is hopeful that every member of Congress will support the legislation.

“We just want to make sure that we protect them in any way shape or form we can.,” he said. “It's I think, bipartisan legislation in Congress, and I'm hopeful that it will pass. It's always helpful when the nation's attorneys general band together to urge Congress to pass common sense legislation like this.”

The Judicial Conference of the United States and the American Bar Association, among others, support such legislation.