Did you realize that the government can request your smartphone location data with no warrant It happens generally, but there’s not been much progress made inside the way of legislation curtailing this actual practice. One state has had enough, however, and it intends to place a stop to it.

Slate reports that both the Texas state Senate and House have introduced bills that will amend the Texas code of criminal procedure to prevent what it feels is the warrantless surveillance of its citizens. Both bills will require law enforcement to acquire a warrant before requesting location data from any cellular carrier.

In even better news, the bills will require any and all carriers that operate inside the state to provide annual transparency reports. These reports will detail the collection of surveillance requests made, and tell citizens which agencies requested the info. For now, we only know the complete collection of data requests made so a catalogue of the agencies making the requests will be valuable.

Under the proposed bills, the govt wouldn’t be capable of keep court orders for surveillance hidden either. The court would only have 180 days of secrecy before being forced to unseal the order and make it available to the general public.

Some may well be concerned over the proposed bills impact on law enforcement, but there are some exemptions in place to maintain serious investigations under wraps. For starters, law enforcement can still get a court authorized surveillance order and not using a warrant if the placement is deemed exceptional. The court order may even remain under wraps if it being made public would hurt the investigation.

There are similar bills being proposed in Washington, reminiscent of Al Franken’s Location Privacy Protection Act of 2012, that might require law enforcement to procure a warrant when seeking smartphone location data. Unfortunately, the bill died with the old Congress on the end of last year, but Franken will certainly bring it up again. Even then, it has little chance to pass as too many in Washington feel that the purposes of law enforcement to trample for your Fourth Amendment rights take priority over your individual privacy.

That being said, the states are the subsequent battleground for this significant issue. You could expect some opposition to expose up, however the Texas legislature has a track record of defying the folk in Washington. We’d even see some serious fireworks if the bills progress far enough.