Leading Utah “Conservatives” Pass Bill Allowing More Government Intrusion Into Our Lives!
“SAY, WHAT?”
(This posting is going to look a little like the beginning of a cheap mystery novel): Earlier this morning I heard the doorbell ring. I was getting dressed, so my wife went to the door, returning with a large envelope addressed to Alan Keele. An unidentified person had dropped it off at the door.
Inside I found a complete dossier on a case I had known about for some time and had been following on-line, but here were all the facts in the case, carefully collected into one file, with the salient points underlined in red. Clearly, someone who knows a lot about this matter wanted me to get busy and inform the voters in District 60 about it. I agree that we ought to be well-informed voters, so here goes:
The case involves a recent House of Representatives bill (HB 150 of 2010, which failed once, then finally passed and was signed into law by Gov. Herbert), sponsored by Rep. Brad Daw (and sponsored in the Senate by Margaret Dayton). HB 150 essentially deletes from prior law the requirement for a judge to issue a search warrant before anyone’s personal e-mail, cell-phone messages, or other electronic communications can be accessed by the authorities.
This means that in Utah it is now legal for any official – a prosecutor or police officer, for example – to access your communications from your service providers without a judge first issuing a search warrant. The bill was aimed at sex offenders who use the internet to troll for victims. We certainly want to prosecute all such offenders, but it seems logical that any judge would certainly gladly issue a warrant for their e-mails if there were probable cause. And a judge would be far less likely to want to go on a broad fishing expedition against ordinary e-mail users.
But this Daw-Dayton bill takes the judiciary out of the process, essentially undermining the protections guaranteed in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution against unreasonable searches and seizures. Without the need for a judge to decide whether probable cause exists, it’s easy to imagine how easily such an arrangement can be abused. (The bill originally would have allowed police to search for any felony, not just child sex offenders, but the notion of any felony was eventually removed in order to get the votes to pass the bill.)
Though vigilance against sex offenders using electronic communications is laudable, it is evident that passing such a broad bill probably constitutes overreach.
Certainly the 6th Circuit Court has ruled that lack of a proper warrant and lack of probable cause for the disclosure of e-mails from an Internet Service Provider is unconstitutional. See:
http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/08a0252p-06.pdf
(By the way, since it increases the number of requests for access, this is also unnecessarily burdensome to Internet Service Providers and other such companies, who don't get paid for searching their systems and delivering information to government agencies.)
Here are a few links for further reading and viewing on the subject:
(Even non-partisan conservative sites like Grass Roots consider the Daw/Dayton bill unconstitutional):
http://www.utahgrassroots.org/annual/2010/
(Owners of Internet companies like X-Mission’s Pete Ashdown are also very concerned):
http://peteashdown.org/journal/2010/04/14/to-republican-and-democrat-state-delegates/
Here's an illuminating Fox New report on the bill:
www.fox13now.com/.../kstu-utah-ags-subpoena-powers-could-be-expanded,
Here's a posting by Connor Boyack:
www.connorboyack.com/.../the-unwarranted-expansion-of-administrative-
Here's even one by the Libertarian Party head Andrew McCullough, a constitutional lawyer:
A number of others can be viewed if you google: administrative subpoenas attorney general utah
My view is that the State has better places to spend our tax money – helping educate our youngsters better, paying public employees better, helping to create more jobs, and generally using the money more wisely – than to be giving it to lawyers to defend unconstitutional bills in court, only to have them inevitably overturned.
Whether it’s guns made in Utah and supposedly exempt from federal background checks on firearm purchasers (Margaret Dayton’s recent Senate Bill 11); an immigration bill (being written now by Rep. Steven Sandstrom) based on the controversial and costly Arizona law which was already essentially overturned by a judge; or this intrusion-into-our-privacy bill sponsored by the Daw and Dayton duo, we shouldn’t have to be wasting our tax money defending irresponsible bills in court!
A true conservative, in my view, would stand up for our Fourth Amendment rights to be free from searches and seizures in our homes. And true conservatives would not want to waste money defending such unconstitutional bills!
I’d like to know how you see it. Write me at akeele@gmail.com.
Thanks! Alan Keele
