Florida Supreme Court Rules Police Need Warrant To Search Cell Phones

An anonymous reader writes "In a case stemming from a Jacksonville burglary, the Florida Supreme Court ruled 5-2 Thursday that police must get a search warrant before searching someone's cell phone. 'At this time, we cannot ignore that a significant portion of our population relies upon cell phones for email communications, text message information, scheduling, and banking,' read the majority opinion (PDF), authored by Justice Fred Lewis. 'The position of the dissent, which would permit the search here even though no issue existed with regard to officer safety or evidence preservation, is both contrary to, and the antithesis of, the fundamental protections against government intrusion guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment.'"

Re:Why the difference?

[jittles]

What exactly makes a cellphone (or any digital device) different than any other personal posession? Why did it take a special court ruling (and probably millions of dollars) to "clarify" this "issue"? Does the law (and the constitution) not already state that a person cannot be searched without due process?

Where in the world did this confusion come from?

Cell phones are carried about on your person. Historically, when you are arrested, the police review and inventory items on your possession. They are able to do so because they are arresting you. Any evidence found on your person is admissible in court. However, the modern day cell phone often extends above and beyond the things that a normal person might carry on their person. You might have thousands of messages, emails, your bank statements, and other personal and confidential information you do not make a habit of carrying with you. If the police need access to that information, and have probable cause, then they should have to get a warrant to do so. Just as they would need a warrant to review my call logs, my bank statement, or to search through my house.

Re:Why the difference?

[Hatta]

To elaborate, the search incident to arrest is justified for the officer's safety. If you had a sealed letter on you, they could open it because there might be a shiv in the letter. In opening that letter, the contents enter plain view which makes them known to the police.

A cell phone is rightly exempt from this, because you can eliminate any possibility that the cell phone is a weapon without examining the data.

Re: Good

[NatasRevol]

Could you please cite where marriage is mentioned in the US Constitution?

You know, since the Federal Marriage Amendment hasn't passed yet.

Re: Good

[azadrozny]

While marriage is not specifically mentioned, Article 4, section 1 states, "Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State." This is what allows a couple to be married in Kansas, then move to Ohio, and not have to remarry, or otherwise register their marriage. Many are arguing that states that fail to recognize the marriage of a gay couple in another state, are in violation of this rule.

Re: Good

[scot4875]

Also, marriage != religion.

Ahh, yes. Sanctity of marriage when you need it, marriage != religion when you don't. It must be nice to be able to flip flop to whatever position is suitable for you in any situation.

--Jeremy

Re: Good

[moeinvt]

"No federal law has been made to impede the free exercise of religion on marriage."

Married people and single people are treated differently under numerous federal laws. That's a form of discrimination one way or the other. All such laws should be repealed.

"marriage != religion."

Marriage was a religious thing long before it became a government thing.

Re: Good

[Cutting_Crew]

there is no separation of state and religion. there is no such clause. not even the words "separation", "church" or "state". the supreme court redefined what the meaning of the first amendment even means in that regard and had to look to a document outside of the confines of the constitution to even have something to go by(and they even got the intent of this phrase wrong). Even so, the document or paragraph by Jefferson regarding "separation of church & state" referred to a state Church - whereas all of Great Britain was under one denomination and they did not want that for American was one of the main reasons why they fled their old country to begin with. "In 1801, the Danbury Baptist Association of Danbury, Connecticut, heard a rumor that the Congregationalist denomination was about to be made the national denomination. That rumor distressed the Danbury Baptists, as it should have. Consequently, the fired off a letter to President Thomas Jefferson voicing their concern. On January 1, 1802, Jefferson wrote the Danbury Baptists, assuring them that "the First Amendment has erected a wall of separation between church and state." "The First Amendment has erected ‘a wall of separation between church and state.’ That wall must be kept high and impregnable." is the quote from the court in 1947 not taking into account the whole context of Jeffersons letter but only a small phrase for which they would coin all their rulings against, asserting for themselves what the Founders wanted without taking the full letter and context into consideration. Since then people have been programmed to believe that this phrase is in the constitution which it is not.

Re:A win for me!

[Darinbob]

But it's Florida. Don't you have to take a sanity test and fail it before you're allowed to move there?

Re: Good

[Catbeller]

Slavery was legal because some states said so; we had to fight a bloody war to make the point that it was not. States are not independent. Get over it. The state's rights thing has been invoked in slavery/gay-sex-crime/keep-the-former-slaves-out-of-our-schools/miscegenation/jesus-is-king/we-can-marry-kids case for over a hundred fifty years. No matter how many times the Confederacy trots this out, we will slap it down.

Marriage was, is, and will be a government-controlled institution. You aren't married by the power of Jesus, but by the power vested by the State in the justice of the peace, or minister, or druid. And there was marriage long before we invented gods.