STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2444

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2097

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2014

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committee on Technology and the Arts, to which was referred S.B. No. 2097 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO PEN REGISTERS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to amend the definition of "pen register" to include devices that record or decode impulses that identify the numbers dialed or transmitted through cell phones and other communication devices.

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of the Prosecuting Attorney of the City and County of Honolulu, Office of the Prosecuting Attorney of the County of Kauai, and the Honolulu Police Department.

     Your Committee finds that the current definition of "pen register", as defined in section 808-41, Hawaii Revised Statutes, was adopted in the 1980s and still refers to numbers dialed on a landline.  This measure makes the definition of "pen register" technology neutral and more applicable to current forms of communication, without changing any standards or burdens of proof that law enforcement must satisfy to obtain an order to use pen registers.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Technology and the Arts that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2097 and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Labor.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Technology and the Arts,

____________________________

GLENN WAKAI, Chair