Sen. Ira Hansen’s tracking‑warrant bill would require sealed warrants and limit warrantless tracking; law enforcement and prosecutors raise concerns

Sen. Ira Hansen (R) presented SB 361 to the Senate Judiciary Committee as a statutory response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Carpenter decision and as an update to Nevada law last amended in 2013. The bill defines “tracking warrant,” “location information,” and electronic devices; it would make location information obtained in violation of the statute inadmissible and establish procedures and timelines for magistrates to issue, seal and extend tracking warrants.

Hansen told the panel the bill is intended to protect Fourth Amendment rights in light of modern technology: “we need to make sure that before a government agency…could go and examine your person's, houses, papers and effects, they have to have probable cause.” He described new categories of electronic devices and “unique identifiers” used for location tracking and said the draft includes sealing and notification procedures to protect individuals who were tracked but not charged.

Public defenders and privacy advocates supported the draft. Angela Knott of the Washoe County Public Defender’s Office argued SB 361 would provide clearer guidelines, noting administrative subpoenas and other practices can vary. “I think SB 3 61 is taking Supreme Court case law and the Fourth Amendment and just bringing it into a statute so that everybody knows what we're supposed to do,” Knott said. Paloma Guerrero of the Clark County Public Defender's Office and Tia Smith of the ACLU of Nevada also spoke in support; Smith supplied external data about large volumes of private‑sector data requests to underscore the scale of location‑data disclosures.

Law enforcement and prosecutors voiced opposition focused on exigent‑circumstance language and operational impacts. Jason Woodard of the Nevada Sheriffs and Chiefs Association said the bill’s section 14(3) could force warrants even in valid exigencies and cited agency statistics: one large Northern Nevada agency executed 35 exigent phone ping orders and 23 tracking devices in 2024. “Section 14, subsection 3 of this bill's language requires, a warrant application even in scenarios where there are valid exigent circumstances,” Woodard said.

Jennifer Noble for the Nevada District Attorneys Association said the Fourth Amendment and case law already provide the necessary individualized, case‑by‑case analysis for exclusion of evidence; the association opposed attempts to codify complex constitutional doctrines in a single statute and warned SB 361’s standing provisions could broaden who may move to suppress evidence. Chris Ries of Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and Jason Walker of the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office also testified in opposition, citing operational concerns and the potential for suppression where tracking helped resolve a case quickly.

Press representatives asked the committee to reconsider confidentiality provisions that would limit public oversight. Tom Morley of the Nevada Press Association said sections 19 and 20 could “undermine the public's ability to be a watchdog of our government.”

Hansen closed by acknowledging the narrowness of disagreement on a few sections and said he would work with stakeholders on amendments. No committee vote on SB 361 was taken during the hearing.

SB 361 remains under committee consideration; sponsors and opponents indicated willingness to continue negotiations on specific language (exigent‑circumstance carve‑outs, notice timelines, and confidentiality provisions) before a possible vote.