IT NOW REQUIRES A WARRANT

[Duchess]

I've seen a lot of stories about cops taking people's cell phones and scrolling through looking at pix, contacts, texts, etc. By law, they are no longer allowed to do that. It now requires a warrant. This is a good thing.

[ramseycat]

Agreed.

[Duchess]

A federal judge decided that. He said a cell phone is more than a phone these days.

[HairOfTheDog]

It's a good and appropriate decision, IMO. The law is catching up to the technology in terms of classifying what's personal private property and evidence.

Police can still search suspects' cell phones without a warrant, if the owner gives them consent. Without consent, police should be required to show probable cause to secure a search warrant. (I haven't investigated this ruling yet, but hope the same parameters apply to cellphones as to residences -- if the property/phone is in two or more peoples' names, any one of the owners can give police consent to search.) Anyway, given the amount of personal data and information stored on cellphones these days, they should be covered in 4^th amendment protections against warrant-less searches.

But, I do worry about applying this new ruling retroactively to the thousands of pending cases where cell phone evidence obtained from suspected criminals without a search warrant is key to the prosecution. It's gonna be messy in courtrooms unless a judge or court stipulates that this ruling does not apply to cell phone evidence gathered before today, and that this ruling can not be used to appeal past convictions which were secured based, in full or part, on cell phone evidence gathered without a warrant.