Posted on 04/30/2014 7:41:12 AM PDT by Kaslin
America is known as “The Land of the Free,” but with the world’s highest prison population where more than 12-million arrests were made in 2012 alone, the statement’s accuracy is open to question. According to the Wall Street Journal, more than half of American men will be arrested at least once in their lifetime, and a 2011 study reported by TIME suggests that one out of three young adults will be arrested at least once by the time they turn 23.
In an “arrest-first-ask-questions-later” system, innocent citizens routinely find themselves in front of a mug shot camera -- and as the Institute for Justice routinely notes, have their assets seized -- even if charges are never filed. These scenarios create problems that can haunt a person for years, if not a lifetime. It is, for example, extremely difficult (bordering on impossible) in many states to fully clear arrest records even if formal charges were never filed. Compounding the problem is an increasing number of jurisdictions in which DNA samples are gathered (and data-based) from persons who are simply arrested.
It is axiomatic that, no matter how much power government has, it inevitably seeks more. A perfect example are two companion cases argued yesterday before the U.S. Supreme Court, in which the High Court will soon decide whether police officers have the right to search without warrant the cell phones and other personal electronic devices seized from arrested individuals.
Government advocates argue that the same power granted to police officers to search the persons of arrested individuals to protect either the officers’ safety or to prevent evidence from being destroyed, should apply equally to cell phones. However, as privacy activists correctly counter, this opens the door to wholesale abuse of the Fourth Amendment rights of innocent civilians caught in the jaws of a zealous criminal justice system.
The power to search cell phones and other electronic devices without warrant or reasonable suspicion already is asserted by the federal government at border crossings; a power that on its own raises a number of red flags. However, police now are demanding similar authority with anybody they arrest, for any reason. Moreover, unlike at the U.S. border where America’s national security interests are of legitimate concern (though not so much as to permit the government to ignore the Constitution), no such argument can be made in the day-to-day operation of local and state police, when people are arrested for every manner of alleged offense, from improper lane changes to drug trafficking.
When the decisions were made years ago to permit police to search an arrested individual for immediate evidence at risk or to prevent harm to the arresting officer, smart phones (which contain extensive and detailed information including photos, conversations, physical location, and financial records) did not exist. Extending that same power to search to today’s electronic devices is, as the San Jose Mercury News notes, “equivalent to letting [police] search their entire home for all of [a suspect’s] personal financial and medical records,” which far exceeds any search deemed reasonably incident to arrest searches.
Nobody is arguing police should be prohibited from accessing evidence that can be used to prosecute criminals. Privacy advocates and constitutional scholars merely assert that police must use warrants to obtain this information. “Looking through the phone’s contents requires its own legal justification,” Cato legal scholar Jim Harper wrote about the case, “and, given the massive amounts of personal and private information on a cell phone, that search for additional evidence will typically require a warrant.”
Considering the government’s enthusiasm for harvesting and storing as much personal information on as many people as possible, it is not out of the realm of possibility that law enforcement tools will be developed to easily download the entire contents of a phone into a database, to be used at their convenience anytime in the future. In fact, such capability already is within government’s toolbox.
As Harper notes, yesterday’s cases are the Court’s first real opportunity it has taken to finally bring outdated search and seizure laws relating to cell phone access into the 21st century. Where the High Court will come down on this crucial issue is not clear. It should be hoped, however, the Court will extend Fourth Amendment protections to citizens; and at least somewhat curtail the government’s insatiable appetite to use digital technology to gather, store and manipulate private information gleaned from personal cell phones and other personal electronic devices that happen to be in a person’s possession when they have the misfortune of simply being detained for some reason.
Where were you?
bkmk
an arrest with dropped charges will destroy a life.
arrests without a conviction or some form of sentence should not be public record.
Is Tracphone suitable for an adolescent, for controlling costs?
“The NDAA makes very clear US citizens are not subject to the abuses some allege. It can’t be any clearer than that.”
Sounds to me like you’ve already done the extensive research. I wonder what the source of confusion is. If/when I know I’ll pass it on to you.
Thanks for taking the time on this. MC
Same basic argument I posted previously about government listening to private conversations. The issue is not an inverted and unarticulated “right to privacy” as much as it is the articulated 4th Amendment “right to be secure” from unreasonable government intrusion. The two rights sound about the same, but the critical difference is “the right to privacy” is construed as something the government has a right to enforce (thus giving government power over “privacy rights” of individuals), whereas “the right to be secure” is a clear prohibition from wrongful government interference of individuals. The 4th Amendment “right to be secure” is pointed at limiting government, not giving it more enforcement rights as construed with “right to privacy.”
Scalia: Governmental listening to private conversations does not apply to the persons, houses, papers, and effects protected from unreasonable searches and seizures by the 4th Amendment. So Scalia is saying that government doesn’t have to have to show any particular reason, certainly not a probable-cause reason, to listen in on private conversations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0utJAu_iG4&app=desktop
Me: Not sure I agree with that. Here is where I think Scalia is weak and conflicts, IMO, with the original-intent approach of constitutional scholar Judge Robert Bork – when Scalia uses the letter of the text to trump original intent. If original intent and understanding may be reasonably suspected to conflict with the text per se, especially in the current usage of the word(s), a good-faith effort should be made to uncover original intent and understanding. Here, that effort might very well show that something in persons, houses, papers, or effects that may have in fact included governmental listening to private conversations.
Examples:
• secure in your “houses” could certainly include wiretapping
• secure in your “papers” or “effects” may very well have been intended to include private communications.
IMO, the Constitutional issue in government listening (NSA and elsewhere) is not the level of threat, but whether the government has probable cause and whether a warrant would be required (usually required for a house search).
Nassau County, Florida
“There will be a checkpoint and they may ask you if you have any drugs but what they really want is for you to pull a u-turn”
My comment was meant to convey why do they have any check points? Why if they do have them don’t they have them for say “citizenship check”. Or, how about they decide to have a “rape check point or Kidnap check point” so they can check to be sure everyone in the car is there of their own accord? Our police state has gone too far and yet not in the right directions IMO.
Can NO one read and understand simple English any more?
Sorry; but you haven't hurt the MEMORY chip(s) at all with this method.
No different than cops insisting after they pull you over; that they can travel to your home; go inside, and search a paper address book.
Sure; but it won't CONTROL petulance or pouting.
FBI Arrest Statistics: 1994-2010
I find it interesting that arrests are not identified by race nor number of repeat offenders. I have a feeling that 10% of the population represents 90% of the arrests!
http://ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/ezaucr/
Estimated arrests of all persons in the United States
Total Arrests:
2006 14,382,900
2007 14,211,500
2008 14,007,300
2009 13,689,200
2010 13,122,100
Violent Crime Index
2006 611,520
2007 597,450
2008 594,910
2009 581,760
2010 552,080
These statistics are estimates that account for missing data and may differ from other published sources. The county-level files which are the source of this information are not official FBI releases and are being provided for research purposes.
Indeed likely.
I am confused by this and it is possible there are agendas at play, but who's. . .the ‘right?’ Who knows. What troubles me a lot is Cruz made a public statement about the (supposed) abuse in the NDAA, and when I contacted his office, they researched and came back referring to numerous news articles but never the actual legislation. . .I then again asked via email and phone for documentation for the specific legislation and they said they would forward to me quickly. . that was a month ago.
This is odd.
Only a few of Us it seems.
Most Smart phones can be set to delete all data if an incorrect password is entered 10 times.
You can also backup all of your info to your PC or online with an Android phone so you can easily recover the deleted data, contacts, pics, apps, etc...
I believe same with iPhones but I no longer own those overpriced Apple phones and have owned Android OS based smart phones for the past few years.
Schedule the app to automatically backup your phone every day, week, month or how often you want and put a password on it.
If the cops demand you show them what’s on your phone, tell them to get a warrant or to go pound sand.
BTW, Metro PCS is a pay as you go provider and has great prices on current phones, unlike some of the outdated phones other carriers have.
Some smart phones with the current Android OS, 4.4, are free after rebate like the LG Optimus L70:
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