Rep. John Lesch
NEWS RELEASE
Minnesota House of Representatives
District 66B 651-296-4224 – rep.john.lesch@house.mn
537 State Office Building, St. Paul, MN 55155
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Bennett Smith 651-296-6422
December 11, 2013
REP. LESCH TO HOLD HEARINGS ON GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE OF CITIZENS
ST. PAUL- State Representative John Lesch (DFL-St.Paul), chair of the House Civil Law Committee, will hold hearings in January to question officials from state law enforcement agencies about the amount of personal data they are collecting on Minnesota residents. The hearings will give state lawmakers a chance to ask about personal data collected from vehicle license plates, cell phone use, and other sources.
Lawmakers are continuing to address data surveillance questions that remain from last session. Last spring, members of the legislature learned about law enforcement attempts to keep personal information derived from license plates indefinitely.
"I don't blame law enforcement for using every tool at their disposal to investigate crime,” said Rep. Lesch, “but it is the duty of the legislature to ensure those tools do not violate the rights of innocent people. The speed of technological growth demands that the legislature, from time to time, inquires to ensure that technology used by government does not violate individual rights."
The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and possible unknown other law enforcement agencies throughout the state are also using cellular exploitation devices to gather data of personal cell phone use. The devices enable these agencies to proceed with data collection without a warrant or permission from cell phone service providers.
Cellular exploitation devices gather user data and location information of anyone near a geographic location that the police are investigating. The devices imitate a procedure that law enforcement agencies call “tower dumps”. Local law enforcement can request that phone companies give all cell phone use records that connect to certain cell towers in a specific area to officials during an ongoing investigation by requesting a “tower dump”. The cellular exploitation devices allow law enforcement to bypass “tower dumps” and phone companies, without a warrant.
Rep. Lesch will schedule hearings on the issue before the start of the legislative session during the month of January. He said he thinks citizens have the right to know if innocent people are being spied on by their government.
"Data obtained by the Star Tribune showed that 99.2% of the data tracked by government surveillance technology was on innocent people. The government is still keeping this data. We must establish reasonable legal parameters for this behavior," said Lesch.
The KARE 11 special news report can be viewed here.
For more information on upcoming hearings, Rep. Lesch can be reached by phone at 651-296-4224 or by email at rep.john.lesch@house.mn