HELENA, Mont. – On Tuesday, the Montana Senate unanimously passed a bill that would put a state constitutional amendment on the ballot to elevate the privacy of a person’s electronic communications and data to the same level as “persons, houses, papers and possessions.”
Sen. Kenneth Bogner (R-Miles City) introduced Senate Bill 203 (SB203) on Feb. 9. If approved, the resolution would allow voters to consider an amendment to Article II, section 11 of the Montana State Constitution that would require the government to obtain a search warrant in order to access a person’s electronic data or electronic communication. The amendment would add the following highlighted words to Article II Sec. 11 of the state constitution.
“Searches and seizures. The people shall be secure in their persons, papers, electronic data and communications, homes, and effects from unreasonable searches and seizures. No warrant to search any place, or to seize any person or thing, or to access electronic data or communications shall issue without describing the place to be searched or the person or thing to be seized, or without probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation reduced to writing.”
If passed by both the Senate and House by a 2/3 vote, the proposed amendment would go before Montana voters in November 2022.
On Feb. 23, SB203 passed the Senate 50-0.
A similar ballot measure passed in Michigan in the 2020 general election.
Language in SB203 was modeled on Missouri Amendment 9, which passed in with an overwhelming 75 percent of the vote in 2014. A similar state constitutional amendment to protect “private and personal information” passed in New Hampshire in 2018.
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