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Committee hears competing claims on reverse‑location warrants; bill laid over
Summary
Witnesses testified both for and against Senate File 1120, which would bar most reverse‑location (geo‑fence) warrants; the A1 authors' amendment was adopted and the committee laid the bill over for further work.
The Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee on March 9 heard sharply divided testimony on Senate File 1120, a bill that would prohibit most reverse‑location warrants used to identify devices present in a geographic radius of an incident.
Chad Marlowe, policy counsel for the ACLU, urged the committee to support the bill, calling reverse warrants a "21st century version" of general warrants that threaten privacy and disproportionately affect marginalized groups. Marlowe told senators that in Minnesota reverse‑location warrants to Google rose from 22 in 2018 to 270 the following year, and he described them as an "overwhelming" expansion of dragnet surveillance.
Jake (J.) Henthorne, Richfield chief of police and president of the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association, testified that geo‑fencing is a judicially authorized investigative tool that generates leads in time‑sensitive serious‑crime cases such as homicides and human trafficking. "Reverse location does not identify a suspect by itself," Henthorne said, describing it as a way to generate corroborating leads that must be followed by traditional investigative work.
Committee members questioned whether a blanket legislative ban is preferable to refining judicial standards and whether civil‑liability provisions in the draft would chill legitimate investigations. Several senators urged continued discussions with law enforcement and the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to seek narrower, constitutionally defensible solutions.
Procedurally, the committee adopted the bill's A1 authors' amendment and then laid SF1120 on the table for further consideration rather than taking final action.
