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June 8, 2017

The law dictates when enforcement officers need a warrant for searches and when they dont. Where do the protections of the Fourth Amendment apply and where do they not.

Technologys rapidly changing capabilities present a constant need for constitutional protections to be guided by updated rule of law.

In June 2014, the Supreme Court expanded the law to address privacy concerns in the digital age. In Riley v. California, the justices decided a warrant is needed to search cellphones seized from someone who has been arrested. They knew when they ruled that they werent just talking about a flip phone with a few photos and a contact list. It was a landmark ruling.

In that 2014 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote: The term cell phone is itself misleading shorthand; many of these devices are in fact minicomputers that also happen to have the capacity to be used as a telephone. They could just as easily be called cameras, video players, rolodexes, calendars, tape recorders, libraries, diaries, albums, televisions, maps or newspapers.

Roberts likened it to ransacking a persons home. Indeed, a cellphone 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.

An example he gave: past location information, now a standard feature.

The court will decide whether law enforcement authorities need a warrant to gather cellphone data from cellphone companies.

The case, Carpenter v. U.S., involves a convicted robber named Timothy Carpenter, who was found guilty partly on the basis of months of cellphone location records turned over without a warrant.

The justices know that technology now gives government the ability to rummage through more than cars, closets, bedroom drawers and smartphone photos. Technology gives enforcement the ability to look at a persons entire life, personal and otherwise, under an amazingly invasive digital microscope. Where and when do you need a warrant for that?

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court conferences on 159 petitions for review and OOIDAs ELD mandate case is one of them. How does OOIDAs ELD case relate? Youve probably already put the dots together. The issues differ fromthose in OOIDAs ELD case. But the courts interest in the gathering of data from electronic devices is significant.

See more here:
Brushing up on landmark Fourth Amendment cases - Land Line Magazine