Voters consider measure to add electronic data privacy to Montana Constitution

HELENA — When Montana voters look over their poll this yr, there’s more likely to be one proposal they haven’t heard a lot about. There’s been no vital marketing campaign exercise for or in opposition to Constitutional Modification 48, or C-48. The measure would change simply 11 phrases within the Montana Structure, however they’re centered on a giant matter: using folks’s digital information.

C-48 would particularly add “digital information and communications” in a listing of things protected against unreasonable search and seizure. Supporters say that would embody emails, chat messages and way more.

“This may replace Montana’s structure for the 21^st century,” stated Kendall Cotton, president and CEO of the Frontier Institute, a free-market suppose tank in Montana.

At the moment, Article II, Part 11 of the state structure reads:

C-48 would replace that language to:

Cotton stated his group proposed this variation earlier than the 2021 legislative session, in response to issues about mass digital surveillance.

“It appeared like folks have been very involved about their privateness, so we began wanting into ways in which authorities and lawmakers may ship a message to folks in Montana that their privateness is a precedence,” he stated.

He stated the Frontier Institute labored carefully with Sen. Ken Bogner, R-Miles Metropolis, who launched the proposal within the Legislature. It went by means of the state Senate 50-0, then handed the Home on a 76-23 bipartisan vote – incomes properly over the 100 sure votes it wanted to qualify for the poll.

Most often, state regulation already requires a warrant earlier than authorities entities can get information off an digital machine. There are exceptions if the proprietor consents and in sure emergency conditions.

Cotton believes it’s nonetheless price including this particular language to the structure, to guard in opposition to any future modifications to the regulation and to make some extent concerning the significance of securing this information.

“What states can do is they are often proactive,” he stated. “We may be the laboratories for democracy, and say, ‘That is how we view our elementary proper to privateness, we view it as together with protections for our digital information and communications on-line.’”

One of many lawmakers who voted in opposition to advancing C-48 was Rep. Invoice Mercer, R-Billings, the previous U.S. lawyer for Montana. He advised MTN he understood the thought behind the measure, however didn’t really feel it was essential. He argued the present legal guidelines – and the safety of “papers, houses, and results” already within the structure – present sufficient safety.

“I’m simply not listening to a couple of circumstance wherein there was a bit of litigation that folks may level to and say, ‘See, here’s a actually dangerous final result, here’s a scenario the place a search occurred that was deemed to be constitutional given the phrases of the Montana structure that didn’t adequately the digital privateness pursuits of the person who was the topic of the search,’” he stated.

Mercer stated he additionally had issues about how the modification may have an effect on regulation enforcement operations in “exigent circumstances” – harmful or pressing conditions when courts have acknowledged officers could typically make a search or seizure with out a warrant.

Through the legislative session, a lobbyist for the Montana Affiliation of Chiefs of Police equally expressed “smooth opposition” to the modification, saying it may have unintended penalties for regulation enforcement.

Yow will discover extra data on C-48 and LR-131, the 2 statewide poll measures on Montana’s poll, on the Montana Secretary of State’s web site.