“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.”
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Well, OK then, thou dear sworn protectors of and upholders of the U.S. Constitution, if government can project certain rights to government based on new technologies, then from the U.S. Constitution the citizens may also project certain rights based on new technologies whereby deriving from the 2nd amendment we must have the right to the police officers’ social security number and home address and the addresses and recent activities of all the politicians and government officials so just in case they are found to be exercising tyranny we can quickly and safely eliminate the threat.
Oh, and while you’re at it, if it is keeping up with modernization that is driving these expanding of access, then we citizens also will require access and unobstructed use of every new and powerful weapon that is available for stopping evil tyrants. So yes, let’s talk.
Cell phones may force courts to readdress searches, but it really has nothing to do with modern technology. The US Constitution is absolutely clear. One cannot legally or morally search someone without probable cause and a warrant.
Watch an episode of Cops sometime, and you’ll see the same pattern repeated over and over. A citizen is stopped for being in the wrong place, walking down the road, or doing anything else the cops thinks deserves closer attention. The cops do a pat down which they typically claim is for the citizen’s safety. They find a packet of drugs, and the person is off to jail.
Now I’m as opposed to drugs as one can possibly be. I don’t even like prescription drugs and take them only when absolutely necessary. Nevertheless, those cops search people without probable cause that an actual crime has been committed are violating the spirit and clear intent of the constitution.
I don’t really care what sort of rationalizations the black robed tyrants use to subvert the law. I can read the US Constitution myself, and it was clearly written to carefully limit the powers of government. In any situation where there is doubt, the intent was to have the benefit of doubt go to the states or the people. The federal government was clearly not meant to be this all powerful, do anything it wants behemoth with the rights of the people limited to extremely narrow protections provide by the Bill of Rights.
I don’t know what we can do about it of course, but if cell phones give us another shot at stopping the government from doing illegal searches, good! It’s absurd to think a cell phone is any different than private papers and possessions which are protected from unreasonable search, meaning the authorities need probable cause that a crime was committed and a warrant before searching a cell phone.