High court could weigh in on cellphone searches

[unhappycamper]

http://www.adn.com/2014/01/16/3276725/high-court-could-weigh-in-on-cellphone.html



FILE - This Oct. 7, 2013 file photo shows people waiting in line to enter the court in Washington. Forty years ago, the Supreme Court decided that police don’t need a warrant to look through anything a person is carrying when arrested. But that was long before smartphones gave people the ability to take with them the equivalent of millions of documents and thousands of photos. The justices are being asked to resolve a new clash of technology and privacy in the digital age.

High court could weigh in on cellphone searches
By MARK SHERMAN
Associated Press
January 16, 2014 Updated 10 minutes ago

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court decided 40 years ago that police don't need a search warrant to look through anything a person is carrying when arrested. But that was long before smartphones gave people the ability to take with them the equivalent of millions of pages of documents or thousands of photographs.

In a new clash over technology and privacy, the court is being asked to resolve divisions among federal and state courts over whether the old rules should still apply in the digital age.

The justices could say as early as Friday whether they will hear appeals involving warrantless cellphone searches that led to criminal convictions and lengthy prison terms.

There are parallels to other cases making their way through the federal courts, including the much-publicized ones that challenge the massive collection without warrants of telephone records by the National Security Agency. Though the details and scale are far different — searching a single phone for evidence that could send someone to jail versus gathering huge amounts of data, almost all of which will never be used — In both situations the government is relying on Supreme Court decisions from the 1970s, when most households still had rotary-dial telephones.