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Posted on 08/19/2013 3:41:11 PM PDT by rarestia
If the police arrest you, do they need a warrant to rifle through your cellphone? Courts have been split on the question. Last week the Obama administration asked the Supreme Court to resolve the issue and rule that the Fourth Amendment allows warrantless cellphone searches.
In 2007, the police arrested a Massachusetts man who appeared to be selling crack cocaine from his car. The cops seized his cellphone and noticed that it was receiving calls from “My House.” They opened the phone to determine the number for “My House.” That led them to the man’s home, where the police found drugs, cash and guns.
The defendant was convicted, but on appeal he argued that accessing the information on his cellphone without a warrant violated his Fourth Amendment rights. Earlier this year, the First Circuit Court of Appeals accepted the man’s argument, ruling that the police should have gotten a warrant before accessing any information on the man’s phone.
The Obama Administration disagrees. In a petition filed earlier this month asking the Supreme Court to hear the case, the government argues that the First Circuit’s ruling conflicts with the rulings of several other appeals courts, as well as with earlier Supreme Court cases. Those earlier cases have given the police broad discretion to search possessions on the person of an arrested suspect, including notebooks, calendars and pagers. The government contends that a cellphone is no different than any other object a suspect might be carrying.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Leni
Come on, people! Wrap yourselves in the flag and be Super Patriots! If this, that, or whatever is for “national security,” we don’t need no steenkin Constitution! All hail The State!
Don’t own a cell phone. I borrow one on long trips say to doc( 200 miles round trip or more) but always take the care out...just precautionary...
I do love what the ‘War on Drugs’ has done for my liberty!
You’re incorrect by several decimal points to the right. It’s easily up over 300 million reasons.
Careful.
Obama might be reading this thread...
...and you might give him an idea.
If it had been Bush, the NYT would have it on its front page every day.
I thought liebruls were against police overreach. Only when there’s a Republican in the White House, eh?
“Obama administration asks Supreme Court to allow warrantless cellphone searches.”
Anyone, who doesn’t realize that this has been done since 2009 is suffering from severe liberal self inflicted brain damage.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3064092/posts
Obama administration had restrictions on NSA reversed in 2011
The Washington Post ^ | Ellen Nakashima
Posted on Sunday, September 08, 2013 6:59:34 AM by originalbuckeye
The Obama administration secretly won permission from a surveillance court in 2011 to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency’s use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans’ communications in its massive databases, according to interviews with government officials and recently declassified material.
In addition, the court extended the length of time that the NSA is allowed to retain intercepted U.S. communications from five years to six years — and more under special circumstances, according to the documents, which include a recently released 2011 opinion by U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, then chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
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