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Four privacy-minded lawmakers have introduced legislation requiring law enforcement officials to obtain a warrant before searching phones belonging to US citizens, and prohibiting them from barring entry to Americans who decline to share their passwords at the border.
"Americans' Constitutional rights shouldn't disappear at the border," Senator Ron Wyden said in statement to BuzzFeed News. "By requiring a warrant to search Americans' devices and prohibiting unreasonable delay, this bill makes sure that border agents are focused on criminals and terrorists instead of wasting their time thumbing through innocent Americans' personal photos and other data."
[...] The bill would require law enforcement to establish probable cause before searching or seizing a phone belonging to an American. "Manual searches," in which a border agent flips through a person's stored pictures would be covered under the proposed law as well. But the bill does allow for broad emergency exceptions.
"The government should not have the right to access your personal electronic devices without probable cause," Rep. Polis told BuzzFeed news in a statement. "Whether you are at home, walking down the street, or at the border, we must make it perfectly clear that our Fourth Amendment protections extend regardless of location. This bill is overdue, and I am glad we can come together in a bicameral, bipartisan manner to ensure that Customs and Border Patrol agents don't continue to violate essential privacy safeguards."
Source: Buzzfeed
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday April 05 2017, @02:00PM (6 children)
Not only border security, but police need to be able to search your devices without a warrant after arresting you. The need to search is to find or manufacture evidence to justify the arrest. This is because they can no longer use 'resisting arrest' as the reason for an arrest.
Border security needs these powers in order to justify refusing entry to someone. After having made a decision to refuse entry to someone because they look like someone that should not enter the United States, for various undefined reasons; it is then necessary to search the person's devices to either find or manufacture a basis for denial of entry to the US.
Hope that helps.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday April 05 2017, @02:21PM (5 children)
There are other ways of getting around the rule that you can't arrest someone solely for resisting arrest.
For instance, many people who've been in political protests have been arrested for assaulting an officer's boot with their groin, or assaulting the officer's nightstick with the top of their head. And as of Jan 20, 2017, standing near somebody else who is being arrested with a press pass and camera is also something you can be arrested for, if you are in Washington D.C. What those cops are taking advantage of is that even if the charges are dismissed the next day, they've been able to legally beat up and search their target even though said target did not violate the law.
And of course, for non-white people, there's always the option of a cop bringing some drugs along with 'em, claiming that their target dropped said drugs, and arresting them. Also, for states where pot is still illegal, if a cop wants to search a car they can claim that they smell dope as soon as their target rolls down the window (one reason we know about this tactic is that many cops in Colorado and Oregon were complaining that they could no longer do this once pot was legalized).
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday April 05 2017, @03:26PM (1 child)
How about a transitive arrest rule? If you are standing next to someone being arrested, then you can be arrested. Repeat. Now the whole crowd can be arrested.
Sort of like McCarthyism. If you are a communist sympathizer or a friend of one, then you are anti-American. If you know anyone who is anti-American, then you are also anti-American. Repeat. Six degrees of Kevin Bacon.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @03:00AM
Actually I suspect this is exactly how they are using metadata intercepts.
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Wednesday April 05 2017, @07:25PM (2 children)
Also, for states where pot is still illegal, if a cop wants to search a car they can claim that they smell dope as soon as their target rolls down the window (one reason we know about this tactic is that many cops in Colorado and Oregon were complaining that they could no longer do this once pot was legalized).
I have often wondered about one going about challenging claims like this in court. In my youth I drove a shitty beater car and once got pulled over for peeling out from a stop light, problem is the car was such a PoS that it physically couldn't squeal the tires (I actually had some pretty good ones on it which made it even less likely). When the cop asked if he could search the car I said no so he went stuck me in the back of the squad and called in a K-9 unit that magically alerted and I was asked if there was anything in the trunk they should know about. My response was no. They went and searched the trunk and found my tools as well as a bunch of spare parts which led to questions about why do I have tools and car parts in my car. My response was I drive a rolling pile of shit that like to throw belts, has a questionable starter, and likes to foul the spark plug in cylinder #4 (I think it was #4). Dumped everything on the ground and still didn't find anything because there wasn't anything to fucking find. After about an hour they let me out of the squad and said that if I didn't pick up all of my stuff I would get a ticket for littering. I demanded their badge numbers and the next day went and filed a complaint but that "got lost" when I went to check on it a few weeks later.
So what I wonder is if the cop claims that they smelled pot or that their stupid drug dog alerted so then they search the car and eventually ticket or charge you with something but the initial premise of the search was false could one get it thrown out in court. Say I get a team to sample the vehicle and they can confirm that there was not pot smoke residue in the car ever. Seriously like a gas chromatograph from multiple labs says 0 parts per billion of pot smoke, pot, or any other controlled substance as well as several other tests that also show none. At that point it would seem that the cop is either lying in court in which case they then need to be brought up on perjury charges, or they have been shown to be incompetent and that there wasn't any probable cause as their nose clearly lies and all previous cases need to be re-examined. Either way the current case should be tossed.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday April 05 2017, @10:37PM (1 child)
That's the fun part: The only thing that matters is that the cop believed there was the smell of pot, whether or not there actually was. You can't prove he didn't believe it, even if it wasn't true. Ergo, the search is always legal, even if it was completely unjustified.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Thursday April 06 2017, @12:51PM
And that is the problem that I wonder if it can be challenged. Unfortunately given the rulings around drug dogs [washingtonpost.com] I would venture that you are correct but would still love to see it tested in court with incontrovertible evidence showing that there is no way the cop could have smelled pot. Benjamin Franklin was right [bartleby.com] but it seems his wisdom is all too frequently ignored in far too many cases.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone