Court OKs searches of cell phones without warrant

[Liberal_in_LA]

Court OKs searches of cell phones without warrant

(01-03) 16:25 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- The California Supreme Court allowed police Monday to search arrestees' cell phones without a warrant, saying defendants lose their privacy rights for any items they're carrying when taken into custody.

Under U.S. Supreme Court precedents, "this loss of privacy allows police not only to seize anything of importance they find on the arrestee's body ... but also to open and examine what they find," the state court said in a 5-2 ruling.

The majority, led by Justice Ming Chin, relied on decisions in the 1970s by the nation's high court upholding searches of cigarette packages and clothing that officers seized during an arrest and examined later without seeking a warrant from a judge.

The dissenting justices said those rulings shouldn't be extended to modern cell phones that can store huge amounts of data.

Monday's decision allows police "to rummage at leisure through the wealth of personal and business information that can be carried on a mobile phone or handheld computer merely because the device was taken from an arrestee's person," said Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, joined in dissent by Justice Carlos Moreno.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/03/BA5N1H3G12.DTL#ixzz1A6CEYahu

[Webster Green]

1. Unbelievable.

Well, not really. New normal is more like it. :grr:

[Xicano]

2. LOL.. Program a bunch of "fuck the police" pics, music and videos on them

and if they ever do look at the content of your cell phone, just smile and shrug your shoulders.

:evilgrin:

[Jackpine Radical]

3. So all they have to do is arrest you.

From there it's a short step to just searching everything after a stop with no arrest.

The Bill of Rights is gone. Utterly gone.

[truebrit71]

4. Wow. So much for the 4th amendment.

All they have to do is arrest you for some bullshit reason and then go on a scavenger hunt for evidence/proof?

That is beyond fucked up.

[gratuitous]

5. Oh, who needs that bothersome 4th Amendment anyway?

And if the police can't get what they want out of your cell phone or iPad or personal computer, maybe beating it out of you is the way to go. I eagerly await the court ruling that codifies that again. It's just been too gol-darned long since sweating confessions was acceptable practice. The system worked so much smoother then.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

6. Not a lawyer here so please don't flame for asking honest question.

And, BTW, I've never been arrested so...

Anyhoo, if a person has been arrested in the past could the police look through wallets, briefcases etc without warrant if those things were in your possession at the time of arrest?

IIRC, they can look through your car if you're arrested following a traffic stop, i.e. DUI.

If "yes" is that the precedent for this ruling?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

7. If you are served with a warrant and you have encrypted data, the courts will require that you

cough up the codes. Have to wonder what they will do when there is an password protected cell phone.

[TorchTheWitch]

8. why should electronic items be given special consideration?

Any of your other property isn't when you're arrested. They can go through your pockets, your wallet, your purse, your briefcase and puruse anything they find in there like an address book, receipts, credit cards, files, documents, ect. Why should there be any special treatment of cellphones or computers when none of these other items that can be searched are?

The argument for a cellphone being capable of storing a huge amount of data so it should be exempt is stupid. Should my huge purse not be permitted to be searched because it has a huge more amount of data in it than my cellphone does? If anyone is dumb enough to store a lot of personal information or incriminating data on their person, that's their problem if they get arrested. I make it a point not to store a lot of personal crap on my phone because of the possibility of it falling into the hands of someone who can search it legally or otherwise and the same reason for not carrying around a lot of really personal or incriminating crap in my purse either.