Essay
Introducing the Constitutional Amendment to expand article 1 section 10 of the Minnesota Constitution in regards to unreasonable search and seizure to protect electronic communications and data.
This bill would require any form of law enforcement to have either probable cause or a warrant to search a citizen's electronic data. This would be a positive when it comes to the rights of Minnesota residents and that they would not have to worry about their privacy being violated by law enforcement without probable cause or a warrant.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-solutions/fourth-amendment-digital-age
https://constitutioncenter.org/news-debate/special-projects/digital-privacy/the-fourth-amendment-in-the-digital-age
The downside of this bill would be that law enforcement would lose evidence when it comes to criminal activity. Digital data can be deleted quickly and with very little effort which makes time crucial to evidence collection. There is also case law that allows law enforcement to bypass the 4th amendment when it comes to the federal level if information is held by a 3rd party such as bank records. Digital information is almost all hosted by a 3rd party and therefore could be argued that digital information would also not be protected
https://www.floridalawreview.com/api/v1/articles/80990-implications-of-the-third-party-doctrine-the-new-age-of-digital-data-and-carpenter.pdf?
https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1197&context=mlr