BILL NUMBER: S404
SPONSOR: MYRIE
 
TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the criminal procedure law, in relation to prohibiting
the search, with or without a warrant, of geolocation and keyword data
of a group of people who are under no individual suspicion of having
committed a crime, but rather are defined by having been at a given
location at a given time or searched particular words, phrases, charac-
ter strings, or websites
 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section 1 provides the title of the bill.
Section 2 amends the Criminal Procedure Law to incorporate a new article
695: Reverse Location Searches, which prohibits the search, with or
without a warrant, of geolocation and keyword data of a group of people
who are under no individual suspicion of having committed a crime, but
rather are defined by having been at a given location at a given time or
searched particular words, phrases, character strings, or websites.
Section 3 provides the effective date.
 
JUSTIFICATION:
Traditionally, judges grant law enforcement officials warrants and data
requests to access a known suspect's location history and/or online
activity when such information is critical to a criminal investigation.
However, judges are increasingly granting more expansive warrants and
data requests to cast wide nets over the digital breadcrumbs of multiple
individuals simultaneously. Innocent people are caught up in these nets
not because they are under individual suspicion of having committed a
crime, but rather are defined by having been at a given time and
location or having performed internet searches for particular words or
phrases. Law enforcement performing blanket reverse data searches is
analogous to inspection of every unit in an apartment building under the
suspicion that one contains a weapon - a practice the Supreme Court
previously ruled is unconstitutional. This bill would protect individual
privacy rights by prohibiting law enforcement, with or without a
warrant, from acting overly invasive without a clear target in mind.
 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
S217 of 2023-24: Referred to Codes
S296-A of 2021-22: Referred to Codes
S8183 of 2020: Referred to Codes
 
FISCAL IMPLICATION:
None
 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.