10 ms·

Obama wants all the info in your smart phone without a Warrant

50 points by Cbasedlifeform 13y ago

devx 13y ago
If this passes, it will be a ruling as bad, if not worse than Citizens United.
danso 13y ago
The link to the original WaPo report has been obscured in the OP, but it's worth reading to get a full understanding of this case http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/19/obama-administration-asks-supreme-court-to-allow-warrantless-cellphone-searches/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/19... > In 2007, the police arrested a Massachusetts man who appeared to be selling crack cocaine from his car. The cops seized his cellphone and noticed that it was receiving calls from “My House.” They opened the phone to determine the number for “My House.” That led them to the man’s home, where the police found drugs, cash and guns. It's not quite the easy jump to declare that this case would open the gates to warrantless domestic phone surveillance. The defendant was arrested first. The WP post doesn't say if the police needed a warrant to get into the house or if the call represented "probable cause" Also worth noting: the phone in this case was a dumb phone
- rainsford 13y ago
  The government's argument in this case seems fairly reasonable. Conducting an in-person search of a cellphone after the suspect has been arrested seems similar to going through a bag they're carrying. The WaPo article argues that the storage capacity of modern cellphones should make them legally different (even though the phone in this case was a dumb phone), but I'm not sure how such a legal standard would work. I suppose one approach would be for police to be able to search things physically on the phone (like contact lists) but not things that the phone simply gives them access to (like email, social networks, bank info, etc). The problem with a smartphone is not so much that it contains a ton of info, but that it serves as an access point to a lot of personal info that would otherwise require a warrant to obtain. Maybe the legal analogy would be that police can't search your house without a warrant after they arrest you even if you have your house keys on you at the time. They can search your belongings but can't use those belongings (like keys) to conduct further warrantless searches.
  - Amadou 13y ago
    The problem with a smartphone is not so much that it contains a ton of info, but that it serves as an access point to a lot of personal info The current situation may very well change. It is entirely possible that much of that information stored "in the cloud" will migrate to being stored directly on people's phones. Facebook owes the majority of its popularity to being a place that easily hosts and shares photos. The continuing increases in wireless bandwidth and physical storage available on phones coupled with the growing understanding of the security risks of giving personal data to 3rd parties means that paradigm could shift quite easily.
- betterunix 13y ago
  The problem here is that the police can find reasons to arrest a person. So, let's say you are a political dissident and the government wants to know when the next meeting of your protest group is. The police follow you around for an hour, pull you over for failing to come to a complete stop before a right turn on red, then arrest you for "disorderly conduct" and "resisting arrest." Now they search your phone, get the information they want, and release you, only to arrest you again next Sunday while you are making protest signs with your friends.
jasonlotito 13y ago
So, I might be in the minority, but I think this is a fair discussion to have. At it's most basic level, it's a question of whether the contents of items found can be apart of the search. After all, if the police have the right to search you, then they are allowed to open the wallet you are carrying and search it (and obviously this isn't 1:1 the same as a mobile phone, but I'm just trying to have an honest conversation about this, so if you want to anally start picking apart individual phrases or words, go somewhere else please. Edit: Clearly, reading comprehension isn't the same or as valued. I'm not suggesting a wallet and a phone are the exact same thing. Nor am I suggesting they are comparable. If your comment starts off by saying this, you've failed. I should just have made a comment about how this is awful and "OMG Snowden!" rather than have a discussion). I'm not up on the law with regard to weapons, but assuming there is a difference in charges regarding a gun and a loaded gun, the same argument could be made: you didn't have the right to search the contents of a gun? And yeah, that's stretching the comparison. =) So how fine grained do you make the warrants? This is already established within the warrant system. As I understand it, you can't search a small locked safe if your warrant limits you to searching the property for a car. But in the case where a person is arrested for selling crack/cocaine, and during the arrest the person is searched, and the phone is found, how far is too far. After all, if a bag of white power had been found, would a separate warrant be needed to search the bag? Anyways, it seems like this is something that should be addressed. While I'm in support of the 4th Amendment, it discusses unreasonable searches. And it seems reasonable to assume that if you get arrested for dealing drugs, it would be a reasonable thing to search the mobile phone you had for records. Obviously, not a lawyer here. Completely arm chairing this. Corrections welcome.
- DamnYuppie 13y ago
  I agree this is a conversation that should be had. Yet I vehemently disagree with your comparison of a cell phone to a wallet. The amount of information carried on a phone dwarfs the information carried in your wallet. The information in your wallet can't give a detail view of where you go, what you say, to whom, and when. I believe warrants should be very fine grained and not used a troweler net to be cast about hoping to catch someone for any "minor" infraction they can find. The preponderance of regulations, rules, and laws means everyone one in this country is a criminal several times a day and is simply waiting to be caught.
rayiner 13y ago
There is apparently not space in this article for the important qualifier: during a search incident to arrest. The administration isn't arguing they should be able to search cell phones whenever. The case is about a legitimate search incident to an arrest. The key sentence from the article: "Last month the Obama administration stepped in and petitioned the Supreme Court to hear the case and rule that the cellphone search is, in fact, lawful, because, 'a cellphone is no different than any other object a suspect might be carrying' and thus fair game for searches." Police are allowed to search you when they arrest you. That includes looking through say a backpack you might be carrying. The Obama administration is simply arguing that the contents of a cell phone should not be treated differently than the contents of a backpack. This is a sensible, intuitive argument to make. The key consideration for such searches is securing weapons and preventing the suspect from destroying evidence. The weapon concern obviously doesn't exist with cell phones, but the destruction of evidence concern certainly does. Obama's argument is that creating the additional wrinkle of disallowing searches of particular kinds of things will create additional litigation over searches incident to arrest. Which is a legitimate concern: the courts are filled with all sorts of nonsense by criminal defendants trying to get off on the technicalities of searches.
- jka 13y ago
  In the past it hasn't been the case that we carry around all of our personal documents, correspondence, address books, photography, digital currency/payment, and so on. Setting a precedent that this private information -- and that is what I believe most people would consider the contents of their phones to be -- can be searched whenever you are stopped by police will only cause real criminals to use disposable/non-smart-phones, and further set a trend towards law enforcement being able (and people considering it normal) to access this information routinely. Litigation overhead is one consideration, but I think the whole legal system is so horribly behind technology advances in general that I'm not sure it's a valid argument just to streamline the arrest/search process.
  - bcent 13y ago
    I agree that the law is horribly behind. The flip side of your argument, is that a criminal could store his entire criminal enterprise on a phone. While I feel it's certainly an invasion of privacy to allow the police full access to my phone in the event of an arrest. I also feel like some enterprising criminal might offer his friends the ability to remotely wipe their phones in the event of their arrest. Effectively destroying the best source of evidence against someone who uses their phone as a central point of control for criminal activity. Not sure what a middle ground would be, but I sure hope that someone finds one.
001sky 13y ago
It's worth thinking through the implications of adding bio-metric security features to smartphones

devx 13y ago

If this passes, it will be a ruling as bad, if not worse than Citizens United.

danso 13y ago

The link to the original WaPo report has been obscured in the OP, but it's worth reading to get a full understanding of this case http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/19/obama-administration-asks-supreme-court-to-allow-warrantless-cellphone-searches/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/19... > In 2007, the police arrested a Massachusetts man who appeared to be selling crack cocaine from his car. The cops seized his cellphone and noticed that it was receiving calls from “My House.” They opened the phone to determine the number for “My House.” That led them to the man’s home, where the police found drugs, cash and guns. It's not quite the easy jump to declare that this case would open the gates to warrantless domestic phone surveillance. The defendant was arrested first. The WP post doesn't say if the police needed a warrant to get into the house or if the call represented "probable cause" Also worth noting: the phone in this case was a dumb phone

rainsford 13y ago
The government's argument in this case seems fairly reasonable. Conducting an in-person search of a cellphone after the suspect has been arrested seems similar to going through a bag they're carrying. The WaPo article argues that the storage capacity of modern cellphones should make them legally different (even though the phone in this case was a dumb phone), but I'm not sure how such a legal standard would work. I suppose one approach would be for police to be able to search things physically on the phone (like contact lists) but not things that the phone simply gives them access to (like email, social networks, bank info, etc). The problem with a smartphone is not so much that it contains a ton of info, but that it serves as an access point to a lot of personal info that would otherwise require a warrant to obtain. Maybe the legal analogy would be that police can't search your house without a warrant after they arrest you even if you have your house keys on you at the time. They can search your belongings but can't use those belongings (like keys) to conduct further warrantless searches.
- Amadou 13y ago
  The problem with a smartphone is not so much that it contains a ton of info, but that it serves as an access point to a lot of personal info The current situation may very well change. It is entirely possible that much of that information stored "in the cloud" will migrate to being stored directly on people's phones. Facebook owes the majority of its popularity to being a place that easily hosts and shares photos. The continuing increases in wireless bandwidth and physical storage available on phones coupled with the growing understanding of the security risks of giving personal data to 3rd parties means that paradigm could shift quite easily.
betterunix 13y ago
The problem here is that the police can find reasons to arrest a person. So, let's say you are a political dissident and the government wants to know when the next meeting of your protest group is. The police follow you around for an hour, pull you over for failing to come to a complete stop before a right turn on red, then arrest you for "disorderly conduct" and "resisting arrest." Now they search your phone, get the information they want, and release you, only to arrest you again next Sunday while you are making protest signs with your friends.

jasonlotito 13y ago

So, I might be in the minority, but I think this is a fair discussion to have. At it's most basic level, it's a question of whether the contents of items found can be apart of the search. After all, if the police have the right to search you, then they are allowed to open the wallet you are carrying and search it (and obviously this isn't 1:1 the same as a mobile phone, but I'm just trying to have an honest conversation about this, so if you want to anally start picking apart individual phrases or words, go somewhere else please. Edit: Clearly, reading comprehension isn't the same or as valued. I'm not suggesting a wallet and a phone are the exact same thing. Nor am I suggesting they are comparable. If your comment starts off by saying this, you've failed. I should just have made a comment about how this is awful and "OMG Snowden!" rather than have a discussion). I'm not up on the law with regard to weapons, but assuming there is a difference in charges regarding a gun and a loaded gun, the same argument could be made: you didn't have the right to search the contents of a gun? And yeah, that's stretching the comparison. =) So how fine grained do you make the warrants? This is already established within the warrant system. As I understand it, you can't search a small locked safe if your warrant limits you to searching the property for a car. But in the case where a person is arrested for selling crack/cocaine, and during the arrest the person is searched, and the phone is found, how far is too far. After all, if a bag of white power had been found, would a separate warrant be needed to search the bag? Anyways, it seems like this is something that should be addressed. While I'm in support of the 4th Amendment, it discusses unreasonable searches. And it seems reasonable to assume that if you get arrested for dealing drugs, it would be a reasonable thing to search the mobile phone you had for records. Obviously, not a lawyer here. Completely arm chairing this. Corrections welcome.

DamnYuppie 13y ago
I agree this is a conversation that should be had. Yet I vehemently disagree with your comparison of a cell phone to a wallet. The amount of information carried on a phone dwarfs the information carried in your wallet. The information in your wallet can't give a detail view of where you go, what you say, to whom, and when. I believe warrants should be very fine grained and not used a troweler net to be cast about hoping to catch someone for any "minor" infraction they can find. The preponderance of regulations, rules, and laws means everyone one in this country is a criminal several times a day and is simply waiting to be caught.

rayiner 13y ago

There is apparently not space in this article for the important qualifier: during a search incident to arrest. The administration isn't arguing they should be able to search cell phones whenever. The case is about a legitimate search incident to an arrest. The key sentence from the article: "Last month the Obama administration stepped in and petitioned the Supreme Court to hear the case and rule that the cellphone search is, in fact, lawful, because, 'a cellphone is no different than any other object a suspect might be carrying' and thus fair game for searches." Police are allowed to search you when they arrest you. That includes looking through say a backpack you might be carrying. The Obama administration is simply arguing that the contents of a cell phone should not be treated differently than the contents of a backpack. This is a sensible, intuitive argument to make. The key consideration for such searches is securing weapons and preventing the suspect from destroying evidence. The weapon concern obviously doesn't exist with cell phones, but the destruction of evidence concern certainly does. Obama's argument is that creating the additional wrinkle of disallowing searches of particular kinds of things will create additional litigation over searches incident to arrest. Which is a legitimate concern: the courts are filled with all sorts of nonsense by criminal defendants trying to get off on the technicalities of searches.

jka 13y ago
In the past it hasn't been the case that we carry around all of our personal documents, correspondence, address books, photography, digital currency/payment, and so on. Setting a precedent that this private information -- and that is what I believe most people would consider the contents of their phones to be -- can be searched whenever you are stopped by police will only cause real criminals to use disposable/non-smart-phones, and further set a trend towards law enforcement being able (and people considering it normal) to access this information routinely. Litigation overhead is one consideration, but I think the whole legal system is so horribly behind technology advances in general that I'm not sure it's a valid argument just to streamline the arrest/search process.
- bcent 13y ago
  I agree that the law is horribly behind. The flip side of your argument, is that a criminal could store his entire criminal enterprise on a phone. While I feel it's certainly an invasion of privacy to allow the police full access to my phone in the event of an arrest. I also feel like some enterprising criminal might offer his friends the ability to remotely wipe their phones in the event of their arrest. Effectively destroying the best source of evidence against someone who uses their phone as a central point of control for criminal activity. Not sure what a middle ground would be, but I sure hope that someone finds one.

001sky 13y ago

It's worth thinking through the implications of adding bio-metric security features to smartphones