This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The Senate passed a bill Tuesday that is designed to stop police from snooping without a warrant into a state database that records Utahns' prescription medicines.
The Senate sent SB119 to the House on a 27-0 vote.
Its sponsor, Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, said in earlier debate that police now search the prescription database 7,000 to 11,000 times a year. "I hope my Senate colleagues shutter at that thought."
He said these are mostly law-enforcement fishing expeditions, and he wants investigators to obtain search warrants that show probable cause.
Police chiefs oppose the restriction because "for the last 19 years, our law enforcement have gotten so used to just going in and rifling through peoples' electronic medicine cabinet that we're taking away one of their favorite toys," said Weiler.
He said he told chiefs, "I will not apologize that the Fourth Amendment is inconvenient for law enforcement."
Weiler gave two instances of abuse. One was a small-town officer with a pain-medicine addiction who was later arrested for using the database to see who else in his community had the same prescription, then visiting them to steal the medication.
In another, he said the Cottonwood Heights police used the database to check the prescriptions of 500 firefighters as it investigated some morphine missing from an ambulance.
It did not find the culprits, but Weiler said two firefighters were arrested based on unrelated information in the database, though they were later acquitted.