S.B. 19 Digital Evidence Amendments: transcript

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, last year I ran a bill, um, and I kind of kicked into a hornet's nest. Um, but my, my issue that I was trying to solve last year was sometimes, uh, people's laptops, uh, iPads and cell phones are seized in investigation, uh, criminal investigation, and they're never given back. Um, and, and so there are various reasons for that, but what I, what I ended up learning more about, and I ended up touring a facility called the RCFL last summer. And that's where these devices go. So if, you know, and, and the sad thing is, is sometimes they are innocent people. So if you're a college room, if you're a college roommate, um, you know, uh, if your apartment gets, um, you know, searched with a subpoena for child porn, and your car college roommate may be guilty, but you're not your laptop, your devices may be taken. And sometimes law enforcement just hangs onto them forever. Um, but so I abandoned that bill because it, it would've created more problems than it, than it solves. But what I, what I found was that we have about a year, um, delay, uh, or, um, weight at the RCFL. And the RCFL is, um, an FBI facility. It covers their three state footprint, including Utah. And it's where basically most of these people, when they're, um, a defendant, when they're under investigation, they don't volunteer their passwords. And so it's actually a facility where we have people that are hacking into laptops, iPads, and cell phones. And, um, part of the delay is because, um, it, it, it's an FBI facility, and the state kind of piggybacks onto it. And some counties, like Davis County where I live, they just hire a full-time FTE and send 'em down to the RCFL, and they do all of the Davis County devices. Um, and other jurisdictions do that sim gill's office in Salt Lake County, they actually just hired someone from the RCFL brought 'em in-house to their office, but other agencies just send their devices. So the original intent of this bill, well, the, the, what this bill's trying to do this year is to, um, decrease the backlog, decrease the delay at our CFL, because as we all know, justice delayed is justice denied. And so, um, the original intent of this bill was to, um, make sure that every, every agency sending devices was paying something so that we could hire some more staff for the RCFL. But the beautiful thing about running a bill, and, and I've learned this in my tenure here, is you get everyone's attention. And so when I ran the bill this year, uh, law enforcement kind of came together and said, we've got a better idea. Um, and, and so what the substitute does that I'm presenting to you now is it basically, um, requires law enforcement on their own to deal with cell phones. Cell phones are the easiest ones to hack into. The RCFL has stations where any officer in the state can come and like sit at a, at a little cubicle and, and do the, um, to, to hack the cell phone themselves. And then a lot of agencies around the state, they have, um, one of their cops who has been, you know, kind of trained as, kind of has some expertise. And so what this bill does is it says that law enforcement will either do the cell phones themselves at their own agency, or they'll enter into agreement with the neighboring agencies. And I'm told that these are already happening to do the cell phones that way, only the most difficult cell phones and the laptops and, um, iPads, which are harder, will be sent to the RCFL, which will significantly decrease the backlog. So the nice thing about, um, Senate Bill 19 now with the sub, is that no agency's gonna be taxed or charged a fee. So the original bill would've had a fee based on the size of your, uh, jurisdiction. So that's all gone. Uh, but they just need to enter into an agreement, uh, with a neighboring agency or develop that expertise within their unit, which I'm told is only a few hours of training. Now, if they get a cell phone that's particularly nasty, they can't crack it, then they can still send that to the RCFL, but it's only going to be after a good faith effort was already made. So, um, this, as I understand this bill, it has law, it has buy-in from the jurisdictions affected. I'm not aware of any opposition. And with that, I'll conclude my presentation.

You, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. Uh, my name is Carl Holland. I'm the Executive Director of Statewide Association of Prosecutors. We wanna thank the sponsor. This is a very difficult issue, is an important one, especially as electronic evidence becomes more and more used in our criminal justice system. Uh, and he's been, uh, working very hard to work with all the stakeholders. We appreciate him listening to the concerns of the stakeholders, uh, tackling this difficult issue. And we look forward to continuing to work with him on the future as he works on these problems.

Yes, it is, sir. Uh, thank you chair committee. Uh, Nate Mu, chair of the Law Enforcement Legislative Committee. Uh, just wanna say, uh, we, we appreciate Senator Weiler, uh, listening to our concerns and, and, uh, addressing the, the issues we're facing with digital forensics. Uh, we, we think this is, uh, definitely a, a good start, uh, in the direction to decrease the workload over at the RCFL. And, uh, you know, also while showing, uh, law enforcement, um, you know, that we can, we can handle for the most part, uh, the, the, the cell phones and the tablets and, uh, let's, let's leave the computers for the most part to the RCFL. Those are the most difficult things, um, to, to work with. Um, and, and again, as Senator Weiler pointed out that the good part to this is, uh, you know, if, if there are, uh, devices that, that law enforcement can't crack through, through the, the means that we have, we could, we are still able to use the RCFL in that capacity. Um, and, uh, you know, again, hopefully we see a, a decrease in workload and, uh, an increase in efficiency. And, uh, appreciate the senator for bringing this forward and urge the support of the bill. Thank you. And

Nate, I have a real question for you and not just about your tie. Um, do we have, like, does, is everybody trained on like, basic cellebrite usage? Like this is

So not, yeah. Not, not everybody, of course, but, but the agencies that, uh, you know, that utilize Cellebrite, uh, that to, to use Cellebrite, which is one of the tools, right, that can be used, um, to, to analyze.

I don't care which one I just like, do we have the ability to actually do this?

Yes, it, it, cellebrite itself is super expensive, but, um, so, so not every agency is gonna have that or have, have people trained to do it. Um, but that's, that's the, uh, the good part about this bill is, you know, if, if you're an agency that doesn't have that capability, you can partner up with another agency that, that will allow, um, you know, the, the cell phones and the tablets to still be, um, analyzed. Uh, as well as, you know, it, it, it, um, uh, incentivizes or, or, you know, uh, brings, brings to the forefront that the RCFL has those free kiosks that they can go, uh, that they can go use and, and try and, and, and do that themselves. So, uh, it's a good, good thing all around. If your average cell phone store has a cellebrite in the back of every single one of 'em, you would think we could get those in our, with our detectives. That might be something we need to prioritize. Cellebrite's expensive though. Uh, that, that's a, that's a tough one. Uh, I, unfortunately I had to pay the bill on that just not too long ago and, and it hurts.

Uh, yes. Motion to pass out favorably, uh, SB nineteens for substitute digital evidence amendment Motion is to pass out senate bill 19 for substitute.

Yeah, I've actually been to this lab to see the, the backlog and the challenges, but really the cr how crucial it is to investigations and to moving forward prosecution. So thank you for bringing forward Thank you.

I will say, and, and I haven't seen the bill, by the way, Senator have, I don't know if you have for whatever cell rights charging to do these

Things. No, but I will say that the, the lab, uh, itself, RCFL, they have that software. So any, any officer in the state can go and use the software in their facility. So Right.

Physically travel there. Yeah. Yeah.

What I'm saying is from my past life in this industry, this shouldn't be this expensive.

Yeah. I, I'm worried a little bit about, um, our officers, our departments being taken advantage of. Yeah. Yeah. So we should look at that. We should absolutely. In yeah. Procurement a little bit. Okay. Um, thank you.

Briefly? I was gonna say, some of the devices are like, will take nine months to, to crack, but like if you took one of, uh, representative Stoddard's devices, they would crack that in a matter of minutes because, you know, password 1, 2, 3 is not too hard for them to figure out. So

Yeah, actually that's not his password, but I can tell you after if you really need It. Okay. Yeah. Um, just text it to me.

it's in it's involuntary at this point. I'm fine if it's, uh, I've done that in his committee like two or three times this year, I think. So. He didn't notice. It's fine. Uh, it's

And so this is what I found out, Mr. President. We have a, uh, FBI facility in Salt Lake. It's called R-C-C-F-L. It's an acronym. I don't remember what it stands for. Um, but this is when, when the state or federal authorities, if they find someone, if they're investigating someone, for example, for child porn, and they raid their house and they take their computer and they take their cell phone, somebody has to, has to look at those devices. And most of these accused uh, defendants, they won't give the password. And so these devices all go to R-C-C-F-L and there's about a nine to 12 month delay for most of these devices to come back. And in the meantime, sometimes this person is sitting in jail, even if they're outta jail, they don't have their computer, they don't have their phone. And so R-C-C-F-L has this huge delay. And so I started digging into that and this is what I found. Um, some agencies like Davis County, they hired their own person, sent 'em down to R-C-C-F-L, and he does all the Davis County stuff. But other jurisdictions, including some cities in Salt Lake and DA and Utah counties, they just send all their devices to R-C-C-F-L and they wait. They wait, they're contributing to the delay and they pay absolutely nothing, uh, for the state to, to, to, to, uh, to, to crack open their devices. Now, some devices can be cracked within a day or two, and others can take six to nine months. And you have literally have a computer algorithm running millions of passwords for six months trying to open the device. And what I found out is we have some jurisdictions, and I don't blame them, but they're freeloading. They're, they're kind of working on the back of this system. They pay nothing even though they're some of the heaviest users. So what this bill does, my my intent is to decrease the back load because justice delayed is justice denied. And so my intent, uh, this bill is, it's, it, it's to set a reasonable fee on all of the different jurisdictions that are using this, uh, R-C-C-F-L facility. Um, and so we don't have some people paying their, their way and other people just freeloading off of, off of an imperfect system. And so that's what the bill does. It establishes a fee schedule. It's gonna be more for counties of the first class and less for counties of the third or fourth or fifth class. Um, and, um, the fee is a little bit arbitrary, but we had to start somewhere. Um, and, uh, but the idea is if, if counties start paying a small fee and we've tried to design it small enough, uh, so that nobody's gonna say, well, gosh, we think this cell phone has, uh, this material evidence, but we don't want to bust our budget like for a small city or county. Uh, so we won't send it in. We, we've tried to make it small enough so it's a reasonable fee and also small enough so they're not incentivized to just go and hire their own FTE to to do this work themselves, which is what sim Gill's office has done. So that's what the, the intent of the bill is. I believe with the, with the extra money generated, we'll be able to bring down the delay and get, get, get those devices, uh, opened and back to the prosecutors and the investigators in time. Uh, with that, Mr. President, I'd be happy to answer any questions. I'll yield

Because I am still waiting for some stakeholder input. I had a meeting just before floor time. What I'd like to do is just move to um, uh, have a Senate bill 19 read for a third time. Thank

Senator Vickers Baldy Aye. Lewin Aye. Bramer a bus? Aye. Comore Aye. Escamilla Aye. Fillmore Aye. Grover? Aye. Harper? Aye. Kinins Ipson Aye. Johnson Quan Aye. McKay? Aye. Mikel Aye. Milner Aye. Musselman Aye. Owens Aye. Pitcher? Lum Aye. Rebe sandal Aye. Stevenson Stratton Aye. Vickers Aye. Weiler Aye. Wilson. Aye. Winterton President Adams Aye. Senate

law enforcement in particular. They had some changes. So I'd like to move to delete Senate bill 19 and title Embody and replace it with first substitute Senate Bill 19. And if that motion passes, my intent is to recircle it and deal with it tomorrow.

so they can just be a little aware? Uh, it's, uh, it's all of the changes that law enforcement asked for.

Uh, motion. Motion to circle. Motion to circle.

You Mr. President. I substituted this bill two days ago and I left it sitting 'cause it, there are some substantial changes since second reading. Um, my goal in running this bill, as I explained uh, a few weeks ago, is we have a substantial backlog at the RCFL facility. This is where all of the devices, cell phones, tablets, laptops that are seized during criminal investigations. Many of them are CSAM, uh, investigations. This is where they are hacked or, uh, broken into by law enforcement so they can see what's on, on the device. And, um, there's been a up to a year delay, um, for law enforcement. Everyone's waiting for this device to be uncracked, if you will. And, um, I got a lot of stakeholder feedback. Um, after, um, we passed, um, uh, Senate Bill 19 on second reading and, um, these are the, this bill would actually have, um, the local law enforcement agencies, either themselves or with a partnership, uh, agency in the region. They would actually do the cell phones themselves because those are much less difficult. Um, it requires less equipment, less software, less expertise than to get into a tablet or a, um, a laptop. It would also, it would require them to a local law enforcement agency to have their own forensic services or have a contract or agreement with another entity, which by the way many of them are already doing. That allows them to share in the use of mobile forensic services, including the RCFL, which is the regional Computer forensic laboratory. And it provides specific support to the RCFL. Also allows a law enforcement agency to access the RCFL laboratory for mobile device services under certain circumstances. Um, we believe that this, um, is the right, um, approach to try to, um, decrease the, the weight, um, period for these devices to be accessed so that any relevant evidence for criminal investigation can be located. So with that, uh, Mr. President, I would, uh, yield to any questions on this bill?

Thank you Mr. President. Sponsors yield for questions?

Thank you. Um, I'm looking on, uh, some trackers here from the League of Cities and towns and also, um, they have said that they're watching this bill. Have they had their, um, their needs met with why they're not supporting this bill yet?

Yeah, go ahead Mr. President. I, I, they have not directly spoken with me, but, um, the prior iteration of the bill would've, uh, put a, a small fee on every, um, Loa local municipality that was, um, that was sending devices. This bill takes that away. Um, and so my guess is, and I'm, it is just a guess is that this would a alleviate their concerns, but they had not reached directly out to me to talk about the bill, but there is no fee being imposed on cities or counties in this, uh, iteration. So my guess is that would, uh, take away their opposition. Senator Riebe, Thank you.

I am noticing that there's no fiscal note on this bill. So, um, how would this be funded to provide this service?

So, Mr. President, the service is already being provided by the RCFL and so we're not changing that funding structure, but what this would do is it would decrease the, um, decrease the number of devices going to the RCFL because we're requiring local law enforcements to basically crack their own cell phones or partnership with another entity in the area that has that expertise. And so we're going to hopefully, uh, only be sending uh, uh, laptop computers and um, iPads to the RCFL instead of literally dozens or hundreds of cell phones each year.

Thank you Mr. President. I appreciate our efforts to, um, localize these issues, but as I've looked at my property tax, I've noticed that it's gone up exponentially this year. And as we are cutting our income taxes every year, we are actually pushing further, uh, requirements of our locals and increasing property tax. So I know that my county has increased their property tax, my city has increased their property tax and all my adjacent cities and towns are increasing their property tax. So my concern with moving this back to the locals is, um, putting more stress on our smaller governments. So thank you for those answers.

Yeah. I'll waive summation and move that first substitute Senate bill 19 pass.

Thank you President. This resolution is recommended by the Public Utilities Energy

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Um, our CFL, the Rocky Mountain, uh, computer Forensic Laboratory, uh, is operated by the FBI but is also supported by and participated, uh, in by every law enforcement agency in the state. This is the agency that is tasked with, uh, studying and going through the digital evidence, um, that, uh, we'd find as we come across criminal cases that's only increasing. We've talked about the cryptocurrency issues. We've talked about, uh, some of the child pornography issues and, and a number of the other terrible, uh, things that have entered the digital space. Uh, this is the agency that we turn to, uh, to make those things happen. Uh, the substitute that you see before you right now has removed the fiscal note. And, uh, so we don't have that obstacle, but it requires local law enforcement agencies to either perform mobile phone forensics themselves or to partner with another regional entity. Uh, recognizing that cell phones themselves are less complex than most of the cases that we need to send to RCFL. The attempt here is to prioritize the high priority cases, uh, the more severe cases and technology needs, um, at RCFL, that to utilize the experts there, uh, and in a more appropriate way. And then to allow, uh, the local regional agencies and smaller agencies to handle cell phones on their own. That can always be, uh, submitted still for major cases, uh, for our CFL, but it also, uh, allows for individual training stations and, uh, opportunities at the RCFL facility for all of those who would like to use that, who don't have their own equipment. Happy to answer any question if there are any.