House Public Safety Committee adopts DE3 amendment to combine three UAV bills; debate centers on missing-person searches, training and privacy safeguards

The House Public Safety Committee on March 26 moved three separate bills about law enforcement use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into a single delete‑all package and adopted that package as amended. The DE3 amendment that consolidated House Files 561, 1275 and 1396 was approved by voice vote after adoption of a technical A3 amendment.

Authors and agencies described a set of narrow exceptions they asked to add to Minnesota's UAV statute: using UAVs to locate missing persons, to document outdoor scenes where evidence faces imminent destruction, to assist in pursuits of fleeing suspects, and to permit training flights on private land with written consent. "We are bringing this forward that is related to some situations that we've encountered as we work to comply with the unmanned aerial vehicle statute that was passed in the last few years," said Drew Evans, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. He described situations in which a UAV can be used to "launch and be able to set a perimeter so that we're not chasing" and to avoid putting officers or the public at risk.

Supporters said UAVs are a time‑sensitive tool. Sheriff Scott Hable of Renville County, testifying for the Minnesota Sheriffs Association, said the technology helps document outdoor scenes and to train pilots in realistic conditions: "A UAV with a well trained pilot, man, what a great resource that would be in that situation," he said, explaining that cornfields and other private agricultural land are common search locations and are not typically suitable for public training flights.

Civil liberties groups warned the committee against broadening exceptions without additional limits. Teresa Nelson, legal director at the ACLU of Minnesota, said the current law—crafted after broad stakeholder negotiations—already permits warrantless drone use in many emergency searches and cautioned that newer language might allow warrantless searches for missing people without temporal limits. "Drone usage has rapidly increased in Minnesota," Nelson said, citing BCA reporting that UAVs were used 4,326 times and that a large share of those operations were performed without a warrant.

Law enforcement and chiefs' associations signaled support for the consolidated language as amended. Jeff Potts of the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association told the committee the amended bill "will help keep people safe" and praised the provisions allowing written consent for private‑property training and limited searches for missing people.

Committee action: The committee first adopted the A3 amendment to the DE3 package and then approved the DE3 amendment as amended. After debate and testimony, the committee moved to re‑refer House File 1396 (the consolidated UAV language) to the Judiciary Committee with the recommendation that it be considered there. The committee record shows voice votes; no roll‑call tallies were entered into the transcript.

What remained contested: Civil‑liberties witnesses urged narrowing to the classical hot‑pursuit exception recognized by U.S. Supreme Court precedent (for example, qualifying fleeing‑suspect exceptions to felonies or situations involving imminent harm). ACLU testimony asked for temporal limits on missing‑person language so that the exception would not permit indefinite warrantless surveillance. Committee members and law enforcement supporters said they were open to narrowing language in future drafts and noted the amended language was a step toward aligning statute with operational realities.

Next steps: The consolidated, amended DE3 measure was re‑referred to the Judiciary Committee for additional work and any statutory refinement before further floor action.