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posted by azrael on Thursday June 26 2014, @01:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the outbreak-of-sanity dept.

The Supreme Court has unanimously decided that police will require warrants in order to conduct searches of cell phones. The decision comes with strong language that recognizes the fact that cell phones carry extensive personal and private data.

John Roberts, the Chief Justice, said that "... a cell phone search would typically expose to the government far more than the most exhaustive search of a house: A phone not only contains in digital form many sensitive records previously found in the home; it also contains a broad array of private information never found in a home in any form". He also said the ruling will make things more difficult for police, but that that was a price worth paying, saying "privacy comes at a cost".

The EFF calls this a groundbreaking decision. Lots of coverage is available, including articles in the Washington Post and NY Times.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 26 2014, @01:46PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 26 2014, @01:46PM (#60313) Journal

    What was all that nonsense I had to learn in school? A person should be secure in his person and his possessions? Yeah -uh-huh - we really are all "secure" when an armed man can walk up and demand whatever you have. Not only does he take what you have, but he puts it under a microscope just to see how much you can be shaken down for.

    Next up - that "Stop and Frisk" nonsense in New York.

    • (Score: 4, Funny) by lx on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:11PM

      by lx (1915) on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:11PM (#60326)

      Don't worry. They used strong language this time. I imagine it was something like:"Cellphones are fucking personal OK?"

    • (Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:12PM

      by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:12PM (#60328) Homepage Journal

      That one already went to the courts and declared unconstitutional http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/22/federal-appeals-court-upholds-rulings-stop-frisk-unconstitutional [theguardian.com]

      As a native NYCer, I admit, I've never seen or experienced it myself so I don't know if its still continuing in some form ...

      --
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      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Blackmoore on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:16PM

        by Blackmoore (57) on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:16PM (#60330) Journal

        The NYC police are aware that the policy was struck down, but reports are that it is still ongoing.

        they seem to be targeting people of color - so I would hope/expect a nice lawsuit to come their way very soon.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:50PM

        by LoRdTAW (3755) on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:50PM (#60351) Journal

        If you're not black or dark hispanic then that is why you never experienced it. There is an unfortunate misunderstanding of what stop and frisk actually is.

        I have had white people tell me they were stopped and frisked, after doing something stupid. So they dont see why there is an outrage. They thought that was stop and frisk which it wasn't. One guy jumped a fence in a closed park - trespassing, the other was publicly drunk. That is called enforcing the law, not stop and frisk. Yes they were frisked but that is routine.

        No, stop and frisk is this: You're black, walking down the street on your way to grocery store minding your own business when two cops roll up on you. They get out and forcibly search you via a pat down looking for drugs and weapons. That is stop and frisk. The only reason they need to search you is the color of your skin.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @07:02AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @07:02AM (#60757)

          I can see the confusion, I always thought that "crime" was labeled walking while black.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by strattitarius on Thursday June 26 2014, @01:47PM

    by strattitarius (3191) on Thursday June 26 2014, @01:47PM (#60314) Journal
    The most amazing thing is that all of the judges were able to recognize the absolute invasion of privacy and extreme police-state (with paranoia to go with it) that could evolve if every traffic stop resulted in a search of their phone. Nobody thought this was worth the slight chance we would catch more criminals.

    A little bit of hope is restored in the SCOTUS. Let's see how they rule on the remainder of their cases.

    Also, let's see if any of this common sense about how much personal, private data is on a phone will transfer to other forms of our digital interactions. They have recognized that the client device has all of this data, but when will SCOTUS, and the rest of the US, realize that a user of gmail, facebook, twitter, and just a couple other apps may have all of that information floating around in these various companies' computer systems. Plus some shared with 3rd parties, advertisers compiling data. If only we could get them to enforce strong protection of our information while located at a 3rd party.
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    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 26 2014, @03:40PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday June 26 2014, @03:40PM (#60376) Journal

      The Supreme Court left the government the standard out, "except in cases of national security." How over-used and abused is that excuse already?

      The net is this ruling means nothing. It's a transparent attempt to placate the rabble before they storm the private beaches in the Hamptons and ruin a perfectly good social season.

      --
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    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday June 26 2014, @04:34PM

      by frojack (1554) on Thursday June 26 2014, @04:34PM (#60401) Journal

      I doubt this will provide any meaningful protection.
      They will simply seize and hold the cell phones while they send a text message to a friendly judge if you are arrested.

      It's less than a minute to fill out a warrant request with some routine blather about suspected of texting this, and seen using the phone that.

      Getting a warrant via email from a compliant judge's cell phone: There will be an app for that.

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      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26 2014, @04:55PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26 2014, @04:55PM (#60415)

        As it happens, the ruling did address exactly what you're talking about. If needed, police can get warrants very quickly (they say 15 minutes) using tablets or phones of their own [nytimes.com]:

        Chief Justice Roberts acknowledged that the decision would make law enforcement more difficult.

        "Cellphones have become important tools in facilitating coordination and communication among members of criminal enterprises, and can provide valuable incriminating information about dangerous criminals," he wrote. "Privacy comes at a cost."

        But other technologies, he said, can make it easier for the police to obtain warrants. Using email and iPads, the chief justice wrote, officers can sometimes have a warrant in hand in 15 minutes.

        The bredth of warrants will not necessarily be the same, either. The justices made clear that phones contain lots of data of many types: browser history, email, phone records, photographs, etc. Given that phones contain data of different types, it does not seem unlikely that judges will limit the breadth of cell-phone data warrants. For example, if a person was caught phoning someone around the time of a crime, then the call records for that time period would be under warrant but not the rest of the data. Given the ability of police to hold phones in Faraday bags, preventing destruction of evidence, gathering data from phones is not inherently time-sensitive, allowing them to be more selective in the data they pull from a device. Again from the NYT article:

        The possibility that evidence could be destroyed or hidden by "remote wiping" or encryption programs, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, was remote, speculative and capable of being addressed. The police may turn off a phone, remove its battery or place it in a bag made of aluminum foil.
        Continue reading the main story

        Should the police confront an authentic "now or never" situation, the chief justice wrote, they may well be entitled to search the phone under a separate strand of Fourth Amendment law, one concerning "exigent circumstances."

        More generally, viewed one way your comment says that the problem is with the whole system of warrants, which, with friendly judges, are useless as a protection against searches. If that's the case then I would say you are being far too cynical. Are there judges who always grant police warrants? If so, how common are those judges? Do they face any sort of professional sanction? What are the statistics on warrant request/approval rates? Or is the issue you raise a problem that is limited to a small minority of judges and a small minority of cases?

        • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday June 26 2014, @08:47PM

          by frojack (1554) on Thursday June 26 2014, @08:47PM (#60553) Journal

          Are there judges who always grant police warrants? If so, how common are those judges? Do they face any sort of professional sanction?

          Yes.
          Very.
          Never.

          At most, they may have a warrant overturned once in a while. But that is the extent of it.
          I personally know a District Attorney who was reluctant to prosecute any case when the police
          obtained a warrant from a specific judge, just because that judge had his warrants quashed so often.
          But other than that, sanctions? are ye daft mon?

          --
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:02PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:02PM (#60320)

    This ruling made me so amazingly happy yesterday when it came out. It really gives me some hope. It's pathetic that we as a people forced this all the way to the Supreme Court, but at least they made it clear they consider the 4th amendment important. Now let's hope the ruling is honored by the people who are supposed to enforce it.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:12PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:12PM (#60327)

      I don't think it's pathetic that this went to the supreme court. Cell phones and other high-data-density electronics are a new class of device with a new class of privacy implications. It isn't surprising that it has taken time for the nature of those devices vis-a-vis privacy to be recognized; after all, even we technologists are still getting used to what cell phones are and what they can do.

      As for whether the ruling will be honored, I don't see why not: it's crystal clear. At one point Roberts said simply: If police want to search a cell phone they need to 'get a warrant'. The ruling is in clear English and leaves no wiggle room.

      • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:42PM

        by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:42PM (#60342)

        As for whether the ruling will be honored, I don't see why not: it's crystal clear.

        Being clearly unconstitutional didn't stop them until now. Will affirming that it is indeed unconstitutional?

        --
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        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:55PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:55PM (#60354)

          Police erred on the side of ease-of-prosecution rather than individual privacy. Police did, and do, have powers to search vehicles and possessions without a warrant. Cell phones began with a memory of the most recent call made (redial) and 100 directory entries (speed dial) have slowly added features over the years. At what point did they become protected by the fourth amendment? It isn't obvious to me.

          It's clearly unconstitutional now, and if police try to pull the same trick then they will be giving suspects a free pass to get the case thrown out and sue the police department.

          • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday June 26 2014, @04:39PM

            by frojack (1554) on Thursday June 26 2014, @04:39PM (#60404) Journal

            Redial? Speeddial?
            AC: have you even SEEN a smartphone in that basement of yours.

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            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26 2014, @05:00PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26 2014, @05:00PM (#60421)

              Read what I wrote again. I was trying to demonstrate that the technology called 'cell phone' started with little data storage and carried a small privacy risk, and that that technology has slowly evolved to become a large privacy risk. One consequence of this slow evolution is that drawing the line where cell phones qualify for the sort of 4th amendment protection they clearly gained in this court ruling is difficult, and by consequence that police can't unambiguously be blamed for violating the constitution, simply because it wasn't clear when cell phone searches started needing constitutional protection.

              As for my exact words in the previous post, the original cell phones (the brick phones and fat Moto flip phones of the 80s/early 90s) did indeed only have redial and speedial. Since then, they "have slowly added features over the years". I will admit to a slip, though;I should have said "Cell phones that began with a memory of the most recent call made (redial) and 100 directory entries (speed dial) have slowly added features over the years."

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26 2014, @09:31PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26 2014, @09:31PM (#60578)

                I was able to follow your train of thought in the original post without any confusion, even if the GP couldn't.

      • (Score: 2) by rts008 on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:47PM

        by rts008 (3001) on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:47PM (#60349)

        As does the parent post, I also think it's pathetic that it had to go this far.

        The cellphone does not really change the core concept/principals that were being addressed here.

        While I agree that the cellphone has impacted society strongly, that really should not change the the 4th Ammendment as it seems to have done.

        I look at it like this:
        It is like enforcing whether or not you can cut down a tree when the tech changed from stone to metal axes.
        You are still just cutting down a tree, only with a better tool, but you have not really changed the tree cutting process.
        (my analogy becomes a bit shaky when LASER tree cutters are introduced though, especially if sharks are involved!)

        • (Score: 2) by everdred on Thursday June 26 2014, @04:31PM

          by everdred (110) on Thursday June 26 2014, @04:31PM (#60397) Journal

          > The cellphone does not really change the core concept/principals that were being addressed here.

          It does. Generally, when an arrest is made, the police are allowed to search the possessions you are carrying on you and your immediate surroundings like your car, or the room where they found you. This would seem to suggest that the cell phone you have in your pocket is fair game, even though it contains way more information about you (and access to your "cloud" accounts where even more stuff is stored) than anything else in the history of everything.

          While conventional wisdom seems to suggest that modern cell phones are a fundamentally different kind of possession than just about anything else you might typically carry, this ruling reinforces that idea.

          • (Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Thursday June 26 2014, @04:52PM

            by frojack (1554) on Thursday June 26 2014, @04:52PM (#60412) Journal

            You are on the right track, but not quite up to date.

            The police can't routinely search your car just because they stop you for some traffic infraction or arrest you for DWI.

            They now need to impound the car and apply for a warrant to search it.

            Arrested at home? A search warrant for the house is also required.

            Exceptions exist for exigent circumstances, such as they saw you buy the drugs and suspect your roommate may flush them after they haul you away in cuffs.

            This ruling just puts the phone on equal footing. And the compliant judges that routinely rubber stamp these warrant requests will continue to do so in great numbers. It's really a hollow victory.

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      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday June 27 2014, @12:37AM

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 27 2014, @12:37AM (#60659) Journal

        Sorry, but considering the time, expense, and danger required to get a supreme court ruling, and the gamble that it will be favorable, I don't see pathetic as being a poor descriptive term, though I'd prefer outrageous.

        Yes, this is the system working as it was designed to work, but the design intentionally favors the wealthy and powerful. And I find that outrageous. There are good historical reasons why it was designed that way, dating back to at least the Magna Charta, but that doesn't make it any less outrageous.

        OTOH, trying to come up with a better system is quite a difficult exercise. We could patch the current system by removing election by plurality and replacing it by something fairer, such as election by simple majority. This would require adopting something like Instant Runoff Voting or Condorcet Voting to avoid an interminable series of elections. Actually, I think that even a lottery would give us a better government than the system we've currently got. I would make literacy a requirement for holding office, however. (But the test needs to be a fair test. Say the standard 12th grade equivalency literacy test.)

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:21PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:21PM (#60333)

    yeah, a cell-phone is basically a GPS tracking device implanted.
    of course people willingly carry it around so no need to implant it.
    it's like those "home-confinment" anklets in the movie "Disturbia".

    if you don't believe this, then just look at the technical fact that the cell-phone
    company NEEDS TO KNOW where your cell phone is, else how else will they know
    which tower to send the phone call through to you? you really think they're bouncing the signal
    off the moon?

    This ruling decides that cell phone users are in fact NOT inmates/felons in some country-wide
    wall-less prison!

    of course what internal cellphone company employees can do when they're bored is another question : )

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:22PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:22PM (#60334)

      This ruling only tangentially addresses the location-tracking aspects of cell phones. It is much more concerned with the amount of personal data stored on cell phones, either in terms of emails or apps or browsing history.