SCOTUS has finally ruled -- unanimously! -- that a warrant is required to physically search the cell phone of an arrested suspect. A lower court judge, ruling on one of the cases, wrote: “Today, many Americans store their most personal ‘papers’ and ‘effects’ in electronic format on a cellphone, carried on the person. No kidding. Thanks for noticing. Next step would be for us to stop considering call logs and other metadata to be business records that can be hoovered up with a national security letter or subpoena, and instead consider them to be personal papers and effects. The Fourth Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Its hard to imagine that the writers of that text would consider who you called and for how long anything other than your papers and effects. We need to catch the Constitution up to the modern age or we will lose its protection.
Posted on: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 15:38:16 +0000
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