MN Legislature Introduces Amendment To Protect Electronic Communications

Bob the Super Hamste writes: The Minnesota legislature has introduced an amendment to the State Constitution to enshrine the protections against unreasonable search and seizure to electronic communications and data. The amendment appears to have broad support in the State House, but leadership in the State Senate is lukewarm to it. In the Senate, Judiciary Committee Chairman Ron Latz (DFL) had blocked the amendment, stating that he feels it is redundant. Additionally, Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk (DFL) opposes the legislation because it is an amendment to the Minnesota Constitution. If it passed, Minnesota would become only the second state to enact such a change (Missouri did so last year with support from 75% of voters).

Comments

The big question is

[rossdee]

How does Dayton feel about it?

Re:The big question is

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Ask the last person who he talked to on the subject. Also as others have pointed out it doesn't matter what he thinks as the process to amend the MN Constitution requires only the both the MN house and MN senate pass the bill and that the voters approve the amendment.

Redundancy Is Good For Civil Rights

[firewrought]

He feels it is redundant.

Supposedly the Bill of Rights was controversial in its day because many of the founding fathers thought it would be unnecessary: the population would zealously guard their hard-earned liberty and the various protections of the Constitution (representational government, separation of powers, etc.) would prevent tyranny. In fact, they feared that by enumerating freedoms they would inadvertently limit them, which is why they ultimately included the 9th amendment to say "hey, this isn't an exhaustive list" [though the practical effect of the 9th has been null].

Fortunately, the Bill of Rights was passed despite being "redundant", and the courts have brought it into play several times when lawmakers worked up particularly nasty bills. Unfortunately, the courts have also weasel-worded their way into listing several exceptions to these amendments (especially where 1, 2, and 4 are concerned).

Re:Redundancy Is Good For Civil Rights

[linuxrocks123]

The story is actually very interesting. The Bill of Rights was enacted as a compromise to get the Constitution passed. The Constitution was not our first government -- that was the Articles of Confederation, but the Articles of Confederation basically wasn't working at all because it was a very poor design.

Some highlights: it gave the federal government so little power it couldn't do anything. It couldn't even pass taxes; the states were supposed to voluntarily pitch in. It also required unanimous consent in Congress to pass any law, and Congress was all there was; there was no executive or judicial branch.

So some of the leaders -- the Federalists -- drafted the Constitution to replace it. But there were Anti-Federalists, and they argued the central government would become so powerful it would eventually turn tyrannical. So, the Bill of Rights was added to placate them. We can see now that was a really, really Good Idea(TM).

Re:Redundancy Is Good For Civil Rights

[fyngyrz]

We can see now that was a really, really Good Idea(TM).

We can also see that because it has no teeth -- there is no penalty for violating the constitution -- it wasn't able to do its job, and that is why, today, we have ex post facto laws, direct violations of most of the bill of rights, the inversion of the commerce clause, and judicial usurpation of article 5 powers. Not to mention a collapse of representation into corporate servitude, resulting in a de-facto oligarchy.

So, we... Hey! Was that a Nipple Slip????

Re:Redundancy Is Good For Civil Rights

[khallow]

You keep referring to "still breathing", as if state sanctioned murder of citizens for petty criticism is obligatory in the absence of the Constitution.

He's publicly challenging authority. That's pretty open and shut. And dictatorships pretty much need to make examples of those who publicly challenge their rule or they cease to be the ones in charge.

Re:Redundancy Is Good For Civil Rights

[McFly777]

Yeah, but the implementation has been problematic.

Even though the Constitution makes explicit the powers given to the Federal government, several take the reverse tact of if a protection isn't listed, it doesn't exist. That makes the possible actions by the government infinite and the protections few, and nearly impossible to protect against.

Instead of these piecemeal protections, I'd rather no Bill of Rights, and severe penalties for government overstepping its bounds.

Not disagreeing with several comments here that things have devolved as regards to constitutional rule, but the Bill of Rights explicitly disallows what you contend happened. The tenth amendment reads, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or the people." Therefore, the fault isn't in the Bill of Rights not providing comprehensive protections, the fault lies securely in lack of vigilance by the populous allowing the slippery slope expansion of the commerce rule et al to encompass everything. (or even so far as the populous crying "increase the dole" and asking for the constitution to be violated.)

There are several other instances where the Bill of Rights says "Congress shall pass NO law regarding..." but Congress does anyway, and says that they are upholding that Right by clarifying it somehow. (what part of NO don't they understand?) Or, if Congress doesn't, then the courts start legislating from the bench, inventing new unwritten rights which somehow trump the explicitly written ones. Again, lack of vigilance to keep the congress honest, lack of impeachment to kick out those in the executive and judicial who violate, etc.

As I said I don't disagree with what you said up front, but I do disagree with your conclusions that the Bill of Rights made things worse somehow, if anything it probably should be reaffirmed and strengthened. Mark Levin has a book proposing one way to approach doing this. (Admittedly, he is hard/painful to listen to on the radio, but his writing is much better.)

The big question is

[jordanjay29]

Doesn't matter, Dayton gets no real say in this. He can speak his opinion, but it's that of a fellow Minnesotan and not as someone with the power to enact this as law.

All systems can be abused

[s.petry]

I see the US Constitution bashed constantly in media, and occasionally here. You seem to hint at the same idea in your last sentence as well, but maybe I'm taking that wrong. The US was the best design in the history of Governments. Many compromises took place to enact it, but the idea was that it would be difficult to change (not impossible). We now have Politicians and Supreme court justices that believe the Constitution is a nuisance, and that is telling. Primarily that the US Constitution is still a thorn in their sides.

If we taught kids the history of the Constitution and all that surrounded it, we would be much better off.

I can dream can't I?

Painting himself into a corner

[SeaFox]

In the Senate, Judiciary Committee Chairman Ron Latz (DFL) had blocked the amendment, stating that he feels it is redundant.

Saying it's redundant implies there are already laws on the books that protect against unreasonable search and seizure of electronic communications -- yet those actions are being taken.

So which is it, Ron? Either this is not redundant, and therefore a good idea in the scheme of checks and balances, or LEOs are getting unlawful access to electronic communications. Either way, there's a problem here that needs to be addressed.

Re:Painting himself into a corner

[RabidReindeer]

In the Senate, Judiciary Committee Chairman Ron Latz (DFL) had blocked the amendment, stating that he feels it is redundant.

Saying it's redundant implies there are already laws on the books that protect against unreasonable search and seizure of electronic communications -- yet those actions are being taken.

So which is it, Ron? Either this is not redundant, and therefore a good idea in the scheme of checks and balances, or LEOs are getting unlawful access to electronic communications. Either way, there's a problem here that needs to be addressed.

It's a way of resolving a conflict between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law.

Most of us would expect that when a group of people get together and explicitly state that they should be "secure in their papers", that that would mean essentially any private documents and correspondence.

The current Federal approach, however, is to take the letter-of-the-law approach and since electronic documents aren't "paper", they consider them fair game. This not only allows them more power, it makes lawyers happy, since they hate people second-guessing the real reasons for laws, even when the reasons are fairly obvious.

Thus, Mr. Latz slams the door on the literalists at the expense of appearing redundant.