Courts Divided Over Searches of Cellphones

[Gerald]

Hanni Fakhoury of the Electronic Frontier Foundation is working on cellphone rights. “The courts are all over the place,” he said.

Judges and lawmakers across the country are wrangling over whether and when law enforcement authorities can peer into suspects’ cellphones, and the cornucopia of evidence they provide.

A Rhode Island judge threw out cellphone evidence that led to a man being charged with the murder of a 6-year-old boy, saying the police needed a search warrant. A court in Washington compared text messages to voice mail messages that can be overheard by anyone in a room and are therefore not protected by state privacy laws. In Louisiana, a federal appeals court is weighing whether location records stored in smartphones deserve privacy protection, or whether they are “business records” that belong to the phone companies.

“The courts are all over the place,” said Hanni Fakhoury, a criminal lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based civil liberties group. “They can’t even agree if there’s a reasonable expectation of privacy in text messages that would trigger Fourth Amendment protection.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/te...atures.html?hp


Note: November 25, 2012

[Cybermat47]

Just search them. I bet there have been plenty of people found innocent who had a text on they're phone saying 'I killed the bastard'.

[GoldenRivet]

just search em... who cares?

we surrendered more rights in the last decade than since the US was founded.

at this point its useless to worry about it

[Gargamel]

Yes, lets just give up anotherprotected right.

Of course theres a reasonable expectation of privacy in a text message.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin


Yeah, I'm all for just allowing the government to pick apart our rights until we have none left. Text messages are private and should require a search warrant.

And depending on the situation, saying "I'll kill the bastard" is incriminating evidence. Just saying that in itself can be illegal in certain situations.

It's those attitudes posted above that are allowing our rights to be stolen. Apathy is the enemy, not the government. WE are supposed to be the government. Stand up for yourselves.

[HundertzehnGustav]

what?
an SMS is a public thing, like a voice message?

A voice message aint public - unless you turn the volume up and the speaker on.

An SMS much less... it is a For your eyes only thing... otherwise it would be public via zwitter or farcebook.

as Gargamel says...
All it takes for evil to win is for good men to do nothing.
(churchill?)

However...
If the justice has a warrant to search your home... you are in deep trouble anyway. Having a separate Warrant to search the suspects Jeans pockets, purse, wallet, Jacket, car... aint that all the same?
"we will comb through your "stuff" looking for indications that you indeed did the crimes we accuse you of"

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

just search em... who cares?

we surrendered more rights in the last decade than since the US was founded.

at this point its useless to worry about it

Pretty much the way I feel/see it.

[troopie]

Well, i ain't in the US of A, but if they tried something like this in Oz I'd be up in arms in no time!

The medium is irrelevant! A text is a personal message sent to specified individuals. Would you be happy for your government to have unrestricted access to your postal mail? I doubt it.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by HundertzehnGustav

(churchill?)

Normally attributed to Edmund Burke (1729-1797), but disputed. Whichever, it's much older than Churchill.