Bill aimed at strengthening electronic data privacy rights advances at Capitol

ST. PAUL, Minn. (KMSP) -

If a bipartisan group of legislators have their way, Minnesotans will vote on an electronic data privacy constitutional amendment in 2016.

The amendment would require law enforcement agencies to get a warrant if they want to look through your emails or other electronic communications. (Read the bill for yourselfhere.)

By contrast, the current practice, as described to Fox 9 by Chuck Samuelson, executive director of the Minnesota ACLU, allows law enforcement to "take your cell phone, dump all your contents and picture and take all of it, and they can use it to build a case against you."

"But if they had Fourth Amendment protections, you would have the ability in some cases to block the government from downloading your data, and in other cases to ensure that the government does it properly," Samuelson adds.

One of the authors of the Senate version of the bill, Branden Petersen (R-Andover), says the reason he thinks a constitutional amendment is more appropriate in this case than simply passing a law has to do with the distinction between "guiding governing principles" and specific cases.

"Statutory-focused legislation is very specific in dealing with specific instances, and it's not open to interpretation in terms of what it means, whereas constitutional language is much more universal," Petersen says. "In the existing Fourth Amendment, you have the right [to be protected] from unreasonable searches and seizures of your effects in your home, but it doesn't say what 'effects' means in all its iterations. That's not how the constitution is written, and of course we interpret those principles in a whole host of different ways, as we've seen throughout our history."

Petersen argues it's time for the Fourth Amendment to be brought into the digital age.

"If we were all going to start Minnesota today and write the constitution, I think it's pretty clear that electronic data would be included," Petersen says. "And then, of course, all law flows downhill from the constitution, so if you're going to get it right in the first place, you should start with original governing principles and then create laws that are consistent with those principles. We don't start debating statute without a constitutional basis to do so, or at least we ought not do so."

"If the founders were here today, of course electronic data would be protected, because it tells every intimate detail of your life," Petersen adds.

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Bill aimed at strengthening electronic data privacy rights advances at Capitol