By Anna Liz Nichols
Associated Press/Report For America
LANSING (AP) — Michigan voters will decide in the November election if electronic data and communication should be considered personal property, safe from unreasonable search and seizure.
A bill to put the measure on the ballot passed the state House last Wednesday. The ballot measure would amend the Michigan constitution to include electronic data and electronic communications as items law enforcement would require a search warrant to access. If passed, the amendment would apply the same protections to “person, houses, papers and possessions” that are in the state constitution and the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Michigan is not the first state to try to legislate for reasonable cause and a search warrant to obtain electronic data. Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire and more have also tried.
Though the Supreme Court maintains law enforcement already needs reasonable cause to obtain a warrant to access electronic data during an arrest, amendment sponsor Sen. Jim Runestad, a White Lake Republican, has said that is not enough.
In a committee meeting in October, he said third-party companies can forward electronic data to law enforcement, avoiding the requirement of a warrant.
___
Anna Liz Nichols is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.”
- Posted June 29, 2020
- Tweet This | Share on Facebook
Michigan voters to decide in November on data protections
headlines Oakland County
- Annual Meeting
- Board of Commissioners dedicates funding to complete $29 million in local Oakland County road projects
- Supreme Court leaves in place Avenatti conviction for plotting to extort up to $25M from Nike
- Washington Twp. man guilty of killing his wife
- ABA meeting tackles AI, other ethical issues in changing landscape of profession
headlines National
- This Los Angeles lawyer found her calling as a death doula
- ACLU and BigLaw firm use ‘Orange is the New Black’ in hashtag effort to promote NY jail reform
- Artificial intelligence tools for brief writing and analysis are a small firm litigator’s new best friend
- Baker McKenzie partner drops suit seeking IRS documents on partnership scrutiny
- Family members sue networks after learning of loved ones’ deaths by seeing bodies on TV
- Ex-BigLaw attorney once ‘consumed with remorse’ over $10M client theft sentenced in new scheme