The proposed legislation will provide Tribal courts the same access as their non-Tribal counterparts to electronic evidence— including emails, social media messages, and other online communications—for criminal investigations, Cortez Masto said.
“We know that criminals are using online tools to traffic drugs and commit other crimes in Indian country. What we also know is that Tribal courts struggle to get electronic evidence because tech companies won't honor those tribal warrants,” Cortez Masto said. “So this hurts their ability to deliver justice for survivors and Tribal families and that's why I've been working to fix this.”
In 2023, the Not Invisible Act Commission issued a report with dozens of recommendations to improve the federal response to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women crisis.
One key congressional recommendation was to address the challenges Tribal courts face in accessing essential information for criminal investigations.
The bipartisan legislation would amend current law to include courts of federally recognized Tribes as “courts of competent jurisdiction” and recognize Tribes as a government entity under the federal statute.
“It’s important that Tribal law enforcement is able to do their job without the federal government getting in their way,” Rounds said. “This bipartisan bill would give Tribal law enforcement another tool to crack down on illegal activity on their lands. Cutting out the red tape and allowing Tribal courts to access evidence on their own is a step in the right direction to making every community safer.”
This bipartisan bill has been endorsed by the National American Indian Court Judges Association, the National Native American Bar Association and the National Native American Law Enforcement Association.
