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ST. PAUL, Minn. (WCCO) State lawmakers are considering a constitutional amendment that would protect personal data from unreasonable search and seizure without a warrant.

The data privacy amendment would expand the current law to protect electronic communications and data,giving it the same protection in the state constitution as papers and other personal property.

Lawmakers in favor of this constitutional amendment say it would ensure that new 21stcentury communications, emails, text messages and photos are protected just as much as your other personal property.

A broad spectrum of political opinion in the state is speaking as one voice: supporters range from the most conservative lawmakers to the most liberal, all believing that further protections are needed forthe electronic communications of Minnesotans.

Minnesotans support our traditional rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, and theyre also saying they support a modest, targeted constitutional amendment to make it clear that these protections still apply in our digital era, Matt Ehling, president of the Minnesota non-profit Public Record Media, said.

Supporters say the amendment will clarify that personal data is covered by the Fourth Amendment.

They also hope it closes loopholes that allow the federal government access to your emails, text messages and photos.

Sen. Branden Peterson, R-Andover, said there was a loophole in federal law over emails and other forms of digital communication.

All forms of electronic communication that are over sixmonths old can be accessed without a warrant, Peterson said.

The bill has passed through the Civil Law Committee and will be taken up in the Government Operations committee on Thursday.

See the article here:
Lawmakers Aim To Update Constitution For Data Privacy

Privacy advocates are pushing to allow Minnesota voters to decide whether their electronic communication should be protected from unreasonable search and seizure.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers and political organizations is encouraging the Legislature to put the question on the 2016 ballot.

State Rep. Peggy Scott, R-Andover, worries that law enforcement is overstepping its authority in acquiring data like financial and telecommunications records without getting search warrants.

"If data was what it is today if it would have been that way back when the constitution was being written I believe they would have included a person's technological communications as part of those things that would have been protected by the Fourth Amendment," Scott said.

A committee in the Republican-controlled House has scheduled a hearing on the bill this week. No committee hearing is scheduled in the Senate and DFL Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk said he's reluctant to put any measures on the ballot next year.

"I think it would be unlikely that we're going to consider something additional for the ballot in 2016," Bakk said. "It's a conversation that I haven't had with the speaker yet if they have any interest to propose something."

Privacy issues are a major theme at the Capitol this year. There are also discussions about the privacy implications of police body cameras and police use of license plate readers.

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Privacy advocates want amendment to protect personal data

As faithful readers of the VC know, Orin Kerr and I occasionally disagreeabout questions of Internet law, an area where our interests overlap considerably. But Orins recently-published paper on The Fourth Amendment and the Global Internet is a must-read - authoritative and comprehensive, a terrific resource for anyone thinking seriously aboutwhat Orin calls the clash between the territorial Fourth Amendment and the global Internet application of 4th Amednment doctrine to Internet communications, and the many difficulties of adapt[ing] to the reality of a global network in which suspects, victims, and evidence might be located anywhere. Legal scholarship at its best.

He covers a lot of ground, starting with the Supreme Courts decision inUnited States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, which held that a person must have sufficient voluntary connections to the United States either lawful presence in the United States at the time of the search or some substantial connection such as citizenship or lawful residency to enjoy the protection of the Fourth Amendmentat all. That is, some people in the world have FourthAmendment rights, and many others do not, which leads him to ask and analyze three questions: how should online contacts with the United States factor into whether aperson has Fourth Amendment rights? Second, how does the Fourth Amendmentapply when the government does not know if a target has sufficient contactsto establish Fourth Amendment rights? And third, how does the FourthAmendment apply when the government monitors communications betweenthose who lack Fourth Amendment rights and others who have those rights?

Next, he asks a series of questions assuming that the subject of monitoringhasFourth Amendment rights: how does the subjects location (or the location of the data) affect the analysis of whether the search was unreasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment?

Its a rich mine of interesting and important law. But for me, the really interesting question is the one heexpressly) sets aside: is the Verdugo-Urquidez rule itself, and the strict territorial demarcations on which it is based, the right one for the 21st century Constitution? Orin takes the Verdugo rule as a given; as he notes, he accepts the basic principles of existing doctrine and considers how courts should apply those principles in light of the unprecedented globalism of todays Internet. Fair enough. But why dont we extend Fourth Amendment rights to foreigners outside of our borders? The Fourth Amendment, of course, only prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures why should the government be empowered to behave unreasonably towards anyone, with or without a citizenship or residency or locational connection to the United States? Why should the Constitution not prohibit US agents from searching the contents of Angela Merkels e-mail inbox?

Its a question that comes up frequently in Internet law, in connection with other constitutional rights. it was, for instance, very much central to the debates about SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) a few years ago. The animating principle behind SOPA which targeted foreign infringing websites for elimination through the Domain Name System was one that was premised on the notion that the operators of foreign infringing websites have no due process rights that we have to recognize (because, like the 4th Amendment, the 5th Amendment due process guarantees have a territorial component), so we can summarily remove their websites from the global Internet without compunction, in a manner that would be unconstitutional if applied to US citizens. It struck me as a flawed view of the world then, and it does again in reading Orins article.

David G. Post is a Sr. Fellow at the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute. He taught intellectual property/Internet law at Georgetown and Temple Universities, and is the author of In Search of Jefferson's Moose: Notes on the State of Cyberspace. Views expressed are his own and should not be attributed to his affiliated institutions.

Original post:
Volokh Conspiracy: On Orin Kerr and the Constitution across borders

A US JUDGE HAS ruled in favour of the National Security Agency (NSA) in a personal privacy case, despite the protests of rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Jewel vs the NSA was ruled on by judge Jeffrey White in Oakland, California, who told plaintiffs that they had failed to prove that the government violated a long established hope that a man's home is his castle', or rather the Fourth Amendment.

The EFF expressed its disappointment at the latest stage in a case in which it has been involved for some time.

"EFF will keep fighting the unlawful, unconstitutional surveillance of ordinary Americans by the US government," the group said in a statement.

"Today's ruling was not a declaration that NSA spying is legal. The judge decided instead that 'state secrets' prevented him from ruling whether the programme is constitutional.

"It would be a travesty of justice if our clients are denied their day in court over the secrecy' of a programme that has been front page news for nearly a decade.

"Judge White's ruling does not end our case. The judge's ruling only concerned upstream internet surveillance, not the telephone records collection nor other mass surveillance processes that are also at issue."

The EFF has looked to crack open the government during the case and get it to talk more openly about surveillance sweeps.

"The American people know that their communications are being swept up by the government under various NSA programmes," it said.

"The government's attempt to block true judicial review of its mass, untargeted collection of content and metadata by pretending that the basic facts about how the spying affects the American people are still secret is outrageous and disappointing."

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US judge backs NSA in people vs privacy case

THE FOURTH AMENDMENT - ISAIAH AND DAKOTA

By: Dakota Tate

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THE FOURTH AMENDMENT - ISAIAH AND DAKOTA - Video