HELENA, Mont. (March 1, 2021) – On Friday, a Montana House Committee passed a bill that would place limits on law enforcement use of facial recognition. The proposed law would not only help protect privacy in Montana; it could also hinder one aspect of the federal surveillance state.
Rep. Katie Sullivan (D-Missoula) introduced House Bill 577 (HB577) on Feb. 23. Under the proposed law, a local government agency could only use facial recognition technology for the investigation of a missing or endangered person, violent felonies, or for locating a person in the vicinity of a recent violent felony who may be connected to that crime. It would ban the use of facial recognition for ongoing surveillance, conducting real-time or near real-time identification, or starting persistent tracking without a warrant.
After a dispute over the meeting s start time, some members of the House Energy, Technology and Federal Relations Committee weren t able to participate Saturday in a vote that revived a bill saying internet providers would have to give consumers an option to opt in or opt out of receiving hard-core pornography.
The committee chair, Rep. Derek Skees, R-Kalispell, said during the hearing that Democrats who joined the meeting over Zoom before he gaveled the end of the roll call but after he d called out their names and declared them absent and unexcused from the meeting, could not vote. You weren t here at the roundup and you were unexcused, so you don t get to vote in the meeting, Skees told a Democrat who asked why they weren t allowed to vote. There was a roll call, if you re not here and didn t talk to me about not attending, you re unexcused. If you re unexcused, you don t get to participate.