About Cell Phone Search & Seizure Laws Policies Procedures
Call it a sign of the times that ubiquitous cell phones--and all the data they contain--are the center of controversy surrounding Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
Other People Are Reading
-
Why the Controversy?
-
Search and seizure laws have proven to be controversial throughout the years and with the age of technology in full swing, cell phones have become more prevalent than ever in this debate. Do police have the right to open your phone and read your text messages, sift through your pictures and peruse your contact list? Sometimes, they do.
History
-
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that officers must have probable cause and a warrant in order to electronically monitor one's cell phone. However, if the circumstances are severe or suspicious enough to justify a search without a warrant, police have every right to conduct a search and seizure---and this includes cell phones.
-
USA PATRIOT Act
-
The USA Patriot Act--enacted as a response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.--makes it easier for law enforcers to wiretap and acquire cell phone information. This act also made "roving wiretaps" legal, which is when the officers are granted a surveillance warrant without needing to name the intended individual involved in the wiretap to the court. Access to voicemails, which had once been much harder to achieve, is also easier to acquire under the Patriot Act.
Exclusionary Rule
-
If law enforcement does not follow proper protocol, the judge will dismiss the evidence under the Exclusionary Rule, preventing this illegally obtained information to be used against the defendant at trial.
California's Decision
-
Search and seizure laws are far from easy to interpret. In 2007, a U.S. District Court in California ruled that officers need a search warrant to examine cell phones seized from people being arrested. After three teenagers were arrested for drug possession, the arresting officers took their cell phones and wrote down their contact lists, forcing the court to decide whether sifting through cell phones was too private. "Modern cellular phones have the capacity for storing immense amounts of private information," the judge decided, therefore setting the standards that in an ever-changing world, laws must be altered to the times.
-
