From Missouri Digital News: https://mdn.org

JEFFERSON CITY - Missouri voters will have the chance to add a provision to the state constitution this fall barring unreasonable search and seizure of electronic communications.

If passed, the measure would extend the same rights given to personal documents to electronic data such as emails. The proposal, which will be seen on the November ballot, needs a simple majority to become law and would go into effect a month after the election. 

Rep. Paul Curtman, R-Pacific, was the bill's House handler and said the decision has broad support among voters.

"I think that it makes perfect sense that if our hard copy data is protected form unwarranted searches and seizures that our electronic data also should be." he said.

However several Democrats voted against the bill, including Rep Jill Schupp, D-St. Louis County.

Schupp was frustrated with lawmakers for not passing a bill to fix the problem, and said adding it to the constitution would cause issues for lawmakers.

"I do question whether this should be a constitutional amendment that has to be voted on by all the people in the state of Missouri or changed by all the people in Missouri." she said.

Jefferson County Democrat Jeff Roorda, who voted present on the proposal, had no problem with the premise of the proposed amendment but expressed concern with the wording. Roorda said the way the amendment is written electronic data that's in the public domain, like Facebook posts, could be protected.

---

Missouri Digital News is produced by Missouri Digital News, Inc. -- a non profit organization of current and former journalists.