Calif. Appeals Court Approves Cell Phone Searches 367
Local ID10T writes with this excerpt from The Blaze: "In a case explicitly decided to set a precedent, the California Appellate court has determined
police officers can rifle through your cellphone during a traffic violation stop. ... Florida and Georgia are among the states that give no protection to a phone during a search. In particular, Florida law treats a smartphone as a 'container' for the purposes of a search, similar to say a cardboard box open on the passenger seat, despite the thousands of personal emails, contacts, and photos a phone can carry stretching back years. But after initially striking down cell phone snooping, California has now joined the list of states that allow cops to go through your phone without a warrant." Interesting additional commentary, too, from UCSD law professor Shaun Martin.
Does it stop at the phone? (Score:4, Insightful)
iPad or laptop?
What if your device contains attorney-client privileged material or other sensitive documents?
Re:Easy solution... (Score:5, Insightful)
That doesn't always help - they may search it illegally, or (as Shaun Martin argues) invent a completely fake excuse to allow them to search it. In this case, it was a completely fake "drug tip". Also quite common is to call in the police dog, order the dog to false-alert when walking near the vehicle, and search based on that.
Now, you should still not give permission to search, that's absolutely true. But especially if you're not a straight clean-cut educated white guy, don't be all that surprised if they trample on your rights.
California Uber Alles (Score:2, Insightful)
Dead Kennedys for Emperor. That is all.
Re:Easy solution... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also quite common is to call in the police dog, order the dog to false-alert when walking near the vehicle, and search based on that.
Now, you should still not give permission to search, that's absolutely true. But especially if you're not a straight clean-cut educated white guy, don't be all that surprised if they trample on your rights.
I'm a clean cut white guy and I've had the K-9 "alert" on my car and been searched twice, and no drugs were found either time.
I don't understand why the work of a DOG is enough to violate my rights. The dog will alert if the handler gives the command to alert. This isn't evidence and should be disallowed in court.
Cops LIE and courts need to become confortable with that fact. The "War on Drugs" has done more to damage our rights than the Patriot Act ever did.
Re:Passcode (Score:5, Insightful)
So where do we get a cell phone with real encryption?
Re:encryption (Score:3, Insightful)
Obligatory XKCD [xkcd.com]
Re:This ruling does not last long. (Score:5, Insightful)
The damage to the 4th amendment is done. Our right to be free from unreasonable searches should not depend on the vagaries of elected representatives, but should be (AND IS!!!) enshrined in our very constitution.
No reasonable person could believe that this search is reasonable. Our courts are completely off the rails. If they can't enforce the constitution, we have no legitimate government left.
Re:Passcode (Score:3, Insightful)
So where do we get a cell phone with real encryption?
More to the point, why have some of us allowed ourselves to be duped into any expectation of privacy or security with a device that can be swiped from your pocket and scraped for data in moments?
Probably just about any of us could secure data on our laptop machines in such a way as to make unauthorised recovery at least challenging. But (for the moment, at least) a phone is, well, pretty much just a phone with a few doodads on it to give us something to do other than playing minesweeper. The pervasiveness of mobile handsets and applications has way outstripped their rudimentary little safeguards, and anyone who entrusts anything important to such a device most likely deserves a salutary shock.
Re:This ruling does not last long. (Score:4, Insightful)
The constitution is open to interpretation, sure. Completely disregarding what the constitution says is not interpretation.
Re:Not really. (Score:2, Insightful)
I know the SCOTUS's docket is a perpetually flooded thing, and we've seen many instances where they passed on a case not because it lacked merit, but because they didn't want to open up a can of worms, so I'm hoping they take this one on and pass down a decision on it. This BS of making electronic devices (computers, cell phones, whathaveyou) a complete exception to rules of search is just insane and needs to be stomped down.
And you think the current SCOTUS will rule against law enforcement? Maybe, just maybe, we'll get lucky and Scalia will be in libertarian mode* instead of beat-the-hippie mode and will convince one or two of the other conservatives that this is a very bad practice, but I wouldn't put money on it.
(* He did, to his credit, write the majority decision in Kyllo v. US, which ruled that thermal imaging of houses [to detect pot farms] without cause was unreasonable search. He's had other fits like this in the past - Hamdi v. Rumsfeld is my favorite - but most of the time, his supposed originalism leads him to much darker places.)
Re:Not really. (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is, traffic stop law was "settled" by people acting in violation of the solemn oaths that give them the right to perform their jobs. If you accept that the judiciary has legitimate article five powers (meaning, they can redefine the 4th amendment as convenient for them), you're specifically saying that the constitution is no more than irrelevant paper.
Because according to the constitution, they are authorized no such thing. Are we a constitutionally limited democratic republic? Or are we a country run at the arbitrary, unlimited whims of 445 "royals"?
IMHO, The biggest mistake ever made in this country was to assume that government members would consider themselves bound by oath; the second biggest was not to provide strict punishment for violating that oath.