The bill, which was supported by tech companies like Google, Apple, Facebook and Twitter, along with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the California Newspaper Publishers Association, was Sen. Mark Leno's attempt to reconcile outdated privacy laws with relatively new technology.
The bill had its opponents, including the National Association to Protect Children, an advocacy group from Tennessee that argues greater barriers for law enforcement's pursuit of evidence could allow some criminals to destroy incriminating evidence before it's found.
“On the surface, SB 178 looks like a fine bill that tries to protect privacy from government overreach,” a statement from the group reads. ”However, it is an ill-thought-out piece of legislation that will have dire consequences for the men and women on the front lines of the fight to stop child exploitation and human trafficking."
California's precedent is an example that the rest of the country, also still largely unsophisticated when it comes to privacy law, can watch and learn from.