High court could weigh in on cellphone searches

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By MARK SHERMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) - 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.

FULL story at link.



Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140117/DABC81VG1.html

[Sienna86]

1. If the Court has any understanding of technology...

They have to rule a search warrant is necessary.

[Demeter]

2. There's no such thing as a little bit pregnant, nor is there a degree of permissible search

I think it would be a lot better for everyone if searches came after arrests for prosecutions of real crimes, that there was enough evidence to go to trial.

In criminal law, Blackstone's formulation (also known as Blackstone's ratio or the Blackstone ratio) is the principle that:

"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer",

...as expressed by the English jurist William Blackstone in his seminal work, Commentaries on the Laws of England, published in the 1760s.

It is worthwhile to note that the actual numbers are not generally seen as important, so much as the idea that the State should not cause undue or mistaken harm "just in case". Historically, the details of the ratio change, but the message that government and the courts must err on the side of innocence is constant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_formulation

Lest anyone think that 18th century philosophy is "quaint", this is the foundation of the American Revolution.

The NSA and the FISC might want to take notes.

[Baalzamon]

3. I have already decided

that if I ever drive through those states that are allowing police to get away with this, I will have a flip phone set out in the open to make them think that is my phone for them to search, while my smart phone will be hidden.