Can Police Search Your Cellphone Without a Warrant?
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled police don't need a search warrant to look at a cellphone's call list after arresting the phone's owner. As courts around the country grapple with the issue, tell us: is this reasonable search and seizure?
What's the difference between personal information and correspondence you have physically stored in your home, and similar information that's on your cellphone? And what should police have access to without a warrant? It's a question that courts across the nation are dealing with it and one that arose here in Massachusetts on Wednesday, when the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that police don't need a search warrant to look at the call list of a person's cellphone during while searching that person's personal property after an arrest. However, in writing the court's opinion for Commonwealth vs. Demetrius A. Phifer, Justice Margot Botsford cited other court cases that raise questions about the extent that law enforcement officials can access …
Steven Crowell
3:00 pm on Thursday, December 13, 2012
Let me re-phrase my prior post. There is zero expectation on the part of a cab robber that the driver will ever shoot back, but they shoot drivers in the head anyway. This bothers me. I want my deadly adversary to be frightened of what might happen if he attacks me, not comforted. So, more dead cab robbers works for me. more ›