US Supreme Court: Duh, obviously cops need a warrant to search mobes In a landmark decision, the US Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that police need a warrant if they want to search the mobile phones of the folks they arrest. Chief Justice John Roberts, who penned the ruling, said the huge amount of data stored on phones means police cannot routinely inspect mobes as they would the contents …
Yes, there was that.
There is some suggestion that rotten Security Theater cake can not be iced into respectability too, and that is a good thing. The idea that intrusions are the normal and protection is the desirable technology to counter this "fact of modern life" is showing a few cracks in the coverage is a very good thing.
Looks like the Supreme Court has seen the light on this matter. Now, if only they could decide on warantless laptop seizures at the US points of entry, I might actually stop worrying about CBP being able to break my NDAs on client information by copying all my laptop's hard drive...
This was my first thought too.
It's like going through a filing cabinet or someone's cabinet drawers, that just happens to be located on my person because technology allows it to be mobile.
Any laws regarding data that is secured in any way should be subject to a warrant even if it is as simple as a pattern swipe, although I wouldn't consider a simple swipe-to-open screen to be secure in any way.
Incorrect to the extent that searching a portable storage device (one's "effects", perhaps?) should require a warrant whether it has technical protection or not, just as would be true of a residence. If the arresting officers think a phone is worthy of search, all they need do is remove the battery or drop it into a Faraday bag (or simply wrap it tightly in aluminum foil) and seek out a pliant judge. There will of course, be exigent circumstances, but they should be rare exceptions to the rule.
Warrantless search is and has been plain wrong and I am overjoyed to know that the Supreme Court said so. I don't have anything to hide but you shouldn't even get to ask for my phone or computer without a warrant.
The no fly lists in my mind are still viable as flying like driving is a privilige. Flying terrorists is NOT a good thing. Flying people who just have the same name as a known terrorist but are 4 years old or just Muslim is NOT the same thing and should be more easily challenged and changed.
If you have been deeply associated/convicted of or with a terrorist crime, you should not be allowed to fly because you could EASILY risk the lives of all other passengers and no one wants you to contact, help or support OTHER terrorists, in other countries.
The underwear bomber is a prime example. He should NEVER be allowed to fly again and no one like him (bomber) should; because the risk is too high. Radical Mullahs who ask their flock to kill the infidels are another category. They are egging people on to kill others which is criminal by itself.
You may not be able to lock them up but they don't deserve to fly either. Just MHO
What about the people who were threatened that they would be put on the no-fly list unless they cooperated in a completely unrelated investigation?
For many Americans no-fly means no-job unless you can persuade an employer to give you a couple of weeks to drive to each sales meeting on the other coast.
The problem with the No-Fly list is that there is no way to find out if you are on it, *WHY* you are on it, how anybody gets on it, or how to get off it if you believe you shouldn't be.
As far as flying being a privilege or a right; I think all politicians should be denied that "privilege" for a minimum period of six months, THEN let them vote on which they think it is.
Driving, a privilege?!? Suuuuure, mate. Maybe someone should go tell mr. Bradbury too...
Hey Dufus, It's State law in most places here. It is a "privilige" (meaning it can be revoked at will) to drive and I say it is a privilige to fly.
Try getting drunk as a fratboy next time you fly anywhere and see whether they "revoke your privilige" to fly.
I would say that if you are being arrested there is no reason the police should not seize your phone or other storage device, but they should be required to obtain a warrant before looking at the contents. Otherwise, I see no reason for the large number of negative votes.
The bad guys could get access to your 'life'.
Blackmail anyone? What about those naughty selfies of you and your bit on the side?
Do you think the PI that your other half has hired will for one second follow the Supreme Court ruling?
If you put your whole life on something as nickable as a phone then frankly, you deserve everything you get when it goes missing.
The PI can be sued or imprisoned if he hacked or gained unauthorized access to your phone/tablet/etc.
And yes, your phone can be stolen, but that is demonstrably a crime. Heck, your "dear diary" can be stolen, but its still theft. The issue at hand was that police felt they were legally entitled to access your phone if the stopped you, and could presumably charge you with obstruction of justice if you didn't give them access.
Exactly! I downvoted him too because I heard the department of homeland security and the NSA both ask Dan what his thoughts on how they should treat foreigners and he was the one to tell them to treat them all like criminals, it was all his idea. Shame on you Dan! Shame on you!
"Judge Roberts said that the old rules couldn’t apply to modern mobiles, because they were a technology whose scope was unheard of when the laws were put in place."
So in America, police are allowed to look in your pockets and wallet, and read your address book without a warrant. Briefly, apparently. Can they take your address book away and photocopy it, or do they have a certain time to look at it and identify the information they're interested in?
If you were carrying a diary, would they be allowed to read it?
...our fascistic RIPA laws mean that if you're arrested for anything - anything at all - then the police have the automatic right to search your person, property, computers, everything. The justification is to secure evidence, but it's hard to see it as anything other than a fishing exercise.
You forgot taking permanent fingerprint and DNA samples "just in case". Even of primary school children.
http://www.heart.co.uk/norfolk/news/local/police-have-swabbed-children-dna/
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/welsh-police-take-dna-samples-6073851
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10067856/Police-take-DNA-samples-from-children-every-ten-minutes.html
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/may/20/police-retain-dna-thousands-children
This is clearly impossible. I have it on the good authority of The Register commentariat that the United States is the worst country in the world (or indeed the history of the world) and certainly the only place where the government ever does anything pernicious with regard to the rights of its citizens. The Thought Police will be around to administer corrective treatment in the portable Maximum Fun Chamber.
Absolutely it is a fishing exercise - but the bigger issue is that UK police can and have made arrests on the flimsiest of excuses for the sole purpose of gaining the authority to conduct an immediate full home & property search without needing to bother with a warrant.
If the State is going to treat its citizens as criminals (or potential criminals) then people will eventually get around to protecting themselves by...
Installing a 'panic button' on their electronic devices (I'm thinking mostly smartphones). The moment you get nabbed, or have to pass through a checkpoint where your device can be taken, copied & read, you press the button & your phone deletes (after backing up to a secure cloud location) leaving the State with... nothing.
Will this be used by criminals? Yes. Will it be used by vastly larger numbers of citizens who do not want the State to have access to their private data? Yes.
Yes, the State will adapt to this, and the citizens, through technology, will adapt to that and so on...
It's about time the ancient board of inquiry… errr, the Supreme Court did a little catching up and at the same time, the right thing.
Beyond this one sane action of the US's highest court, it's not a good idea to be walking the streets with all of your important information on a device that can be easily lost or taken from you. Look at what you are storing on your mobe and ask yourself if it might incriminate you in some way. It doesn't matter if it's pictures of something that was completely innocent, what might it look like to a cop. Do you really need one-click access to your bank account? Do you really need to keep billing statements and sensitive emails in your pocket? Convenient to you is also convenient for The Man® or a thief.
I'm sorry, but I cannot bring myself to worry about how what I have on my phone will look to a cop. Nothing to hide, I can justify everything that's there if the need arises. So I refuse to live my life thinking about how I might be viewed like criminal. That doesn't feel like freedom to me.
However, I do believe that caution must be exercised with all the geegaws that we lug around without thought. The caution I'm thinking of is reminding oneself what you'd lose if that phone or USB were to drop into the gutter, under a truck tire or somesuch. In other words, what if your phone breaks or is lost ? What have you lost ?
These days, you lose a lot more than a phone. If you had bank access on it, you'd better pray that it got dunked in some liquid and is unusable because if it falls into the wrong hands . . .
That is my guiding light concerning how I treat these technological terrors. Not what a cop might think, but what I am actually losing if that thingy goes missing.
That's not a silly question, actually. Apparently it matters in Ontario. But as far as I've heard the US ruling doesn't require this. Obviously I prefer the rule that they always need a warrant, but it does make some sense that a supposed "incidental" search would have to have to stop upon encountering a lock.
There exists a phone copying device that doesn't need for a phone to be unlocked. Maybe somebody can remember the post and link back. This kit was/is being sold to law enforcement and it contains an assortment of cables to connect to nearly every phone. A couple of keystrokes and they have a dump of everything on your phone. While you think you have nothing to hide, it might be discovered from your GPS track that you were in the area of a crime at just the right time. While that had nothing to do with you, keep thinking happy thoughts about that while you are sat on the curb in handcuffs for a hour while the doughnut patrol "does their best" to figure out that you aren't involved.
There remain wide swathes of country parallel to the US borders where warrantless searches can be done by Border Patrol and the ICE gang that stretch decades of miles inland from the borders. Some of them include sizeable cities such as Rochester and Buffalo in New York State or Detroit in Michigan just along the Canadian border.
Of course, these characters can easily search for things without restriction for their friends in the Cops.
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