Police Don't Need Search Warrants to Read Texts, California Court Rules

@winter

"UNDER THE RULE OF THE DESPOT OBAMA AND HIS LITTLE MINIONS."-----

Phule, this was a decision of a STATE supreme court: nothing federal about it. It will be challenged; most likely by the ACLU ( another of those watchdog groups you people hate ).

Winter - yes our constitutional rights in America have been under attack, but I am sorry Mr. Obama is NOT responsible for those actions...you can thank the real "despot" former President Bush Jr. for that injustice as he was the person who introduced "the patriot act". We as a society need to speak up as a whole when laws are passed that are unethical and unconstitutional.

Furthermore, calling our current President a despot is in horrible taste. Can I ask in what ways has Mr. Obama acted like a tyrant? I can't think of any logical reasoning for labeling our President in this way especially seeing how he is probably the most intelligent and ethical President this country has had in a long time. The only reason that I can come up with for this name-calling is that you are a racist - and if that is true you need to wisen up and get with the current times and stop living in the 50's.

@winter
California rights have been under attack for a while and under a republican Governor... Schwarzenegger. He has put many laws into effect that compromise our constitutional rights way before Obama ever ran for office. By the way Bush also compromised our constitutional rights by wanting to wire tap at will. It is not a party that demises our rights as citizens but individuals seeking self fulfillment outside the law and stretching the law to their whim. We as American Citizens need to rise up against such injustices and fight for our constitutional rights. Have we grown soft and lazy from our freedoms? Other countries take to the streets in protest when their rights are even slightly oppressed. We Americans have stood back a watched while ours are stripped from under us. My forefathers fought for this country to be free. We can't give up the fight because we think we will always be free.

@winter Wait a minute, i thought liberals were supposed to be SOFT on crime, and want to legalize drugs, and let all the criminals out of jail? Make up your mind you schizo

@Lizabeth S. Tucker
What if the information was written on paper and stored in a locked box in the home? That is essentially what a phone is: something in which a person keeps private information like names, addresses, phone numbers, etc. Why wouldn't the police need an search warrant to access this private information?
I do not agree with Justice Chin that a phone is the same as a pice of clothing that must be searched. The same could be said for laptops, Ipods, or any other device that can store electronic information.

@Lizabeth S. Tucker sez, "There is no expectation of privacy with cell phones, whether verbal communication or texting, as they are so very easily hacked"

Don't know CA law, do you? It's illegal to intercept ANY electronic communication in CA, thanks to strict wire-tapping laws. Hacking to intercept cell phone communication is a crime.

In general, I see you're not a big fan of the 4th amendment, are you? You know, the part about protecting citizens from unreasonable search and seizure?

I'm not sure where the statement about a cell phone being a "part of the suspect's clothing" came from; seems questionable as a cell phone is not a fashion accessory (!), but would agree that saying it's immediately associated with the suspect is more generally correct.

Remember, a basic premise of issuing a valid search warrant is it should be limited to minimize unnecessary intrusion into the suspect's property and belongings, and must not be overly-broad, i.e. more invasive than necessary to obtain evidence for the crime which the suspect is being investigated. I suspect this ruling reflects the ignorance of techno-Luddites judges who apparently don't understand technology.

Fortunately, most current cell phones allow automatic timed locking of access to the data, where an unlock code is required to unlock. I dare say a request made by law enforcement to provide the unlock code could be refused, on the basis of the right against self-incrimination (5th Amendment). Better yet, let law enforcement guess the password, since auto-deletion of all stored data will occur after a certain number of failed attempts at guessing the password occurs; they get the privilege of destroying any evidence.

@Jake yes it only applies in California, but it may set a precedent that could be followed by other states.

@fredfuent - Excuse me! If a woman was being arrested, do you seriously think they would not search her purse? That could hide a gun, knife, taser, you name it, with some of the purse sizes I've seen. No law says the police need to be committed to suicide- What if someone in a gang had just texted his buddies to meet at the site of the arrest, with all their weapons? Do you think law enforcement personnel would need to know this information? And, if you think it's so easy enforcing the laws of this country and protecting all it's citizens, not just the criminals, why don't you try doing the job?

@fredfuent

Password protect your phone. Problem solved. Cops would need a search warrant to access your phone data then. In the mean time, have your friend 'wipe' the phone.

@Sean` You know, it's getting reeeeeal old that every time some one disagrees with the "Messiah", that they must be a racist! How about I'm NOT a socialist? How about requiring people to buy health insurance violates the Constitution? How about the TSA, an arm of the federal gov't, which has gone after the pilot who "outed" the crappy security in San Francisco's airport, like he was a terrorist(which granted in this administration is nowhere as bad as it would have been under Bush)? How about the mountains of debt BHO and the Democratic Congress has attained? How about the Stimulus bill and all the shovel ready jobs (that Obama is now admitting never existed) that was a major Porkopolis, Democratic wish list that he approved?Do any of you socialists get it? If this country is broke, it does not matter what bills are passed, to give "social justice" to the rest of the world. NO ONE HAS THAT KIND OF MONEY!!!!! You could confiscate every dollar of the so-called rich, and spend it on the debt, and it would not be enough! And, as to who is rich, that seems to be a changing definition. I remember under Clinton- They were only going to raise taxes on the rich, anyone making over $200,000.00- Then, rich became over $120,000.00. Then, rich became over $80,000.00. Then, they stopped talking about a dollar amount- it became, if you had a job that paid you money, you were RICH! and everybody's taxes went UP.... GROW UP! As they kept telling me when I worked for a Medicare fiscal intermediary, and kept finding fraud, for which they did nothing, "it's an imperfect world".

@sandra

"Why would anyone be against this? If you don't have anything to hide, what would be the problem?"

Under American jurisprudence, if there is no warrant or no good probable cause for search, THEN YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SHOW YOU DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO HIDE.

To question why a person would be against this is to question important boundaries that those in authority must abide by.

The boundaries I speak of are there for very good reason: to keep the innocent from being hurt by arbitrary action of the state, to help prevent another Salem or another McCarthy era.

@sandra, guess you've never really thought much about what your constitutionally-guarantee of "unreasonable search" means, huh? Probably no doubt you've never heard of the phrase, "probable cause" either?

You might also spend some time thinking about what the word 'liberty' means to you, too (as in "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness")...

@serena I doubt it. A lot of thing happens in California and only in California. Then others start jumping on the bandwagon. Just because you can, don't mean you should.