If signed into law it would raise the current standard for police surveillance techniques.
Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney, warning of a trend in "intrusive technology by police," said that probable cause should be the threshold for such data-mining by police, replacing the prevailing less-formal "reasonable and articulable suspicion."
Looney said recent U.S. Supreme Court cases have set limits on intrusive tactics by police throughout the country, including the attachment of GPS devices on suspects' cars and using helicopters with heat-detection equipment to find the homes of illegal marijuana growers.
"By moving to probable cause in this area, we are moving in the direction that seems to be increasingly required by Supreme Court jurisprudence in this area," he said. "It does provide essential privacy protections to have a probable-cause standard rather than merely reasonable and articulable suspicion."
The law would require that notice of data surveillance would have to be provided to a suspect within 48 hours; and if no criminal charges result, the data would have to be destroyed after 14 days.
"This is a time of advanced technology," said Sen. Eric D. Coleman, D-Bloomfield, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee. "I believe it is appropriate to supervise advanced technology."
Opponents included Sen. Toni Boucher, R-Wilton and Sen. Michael A. McLachlan, R-Danbury.
"We put a burden on law enforcement to wait, to wait until something gets worse and I don't think this body should do it," said Sen. Kevin D. Witkos, R-Canton, a retired police officer.
"There may be a need by law enforcement to have better oversight," Boucher said. "I still have a level of discomfort in today's world that we live in, with so much happening. I just am concerned that we may be hampering the law-enforcement process to some degree by proceeding with this particular bill at a time when we probably need to have more tools on law enforcement's side, albeit that there are situations that we are concerned about with regards to personal privacy."
The American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut applauded the vote, noting that current law enforcement standards often violate constitutional rights of suspects, including 14,000 cases of phone surveillance in Connecticut where no requests were rejected by courts.
"Today's vote is a win for privacy rights in Connecticut," said David McGuire, legislative and policy director for the ACLU. "We anticipate that this will lead to an added layer of protection for everyone's texts, email messages, private Facebook posts and other personal information that is available on most of our cell phones."
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