Police Need Warrant to Search Data on Mobile Phones, Unanimous Supreme Court Rules
The Supreme Court said police in general must obtain a warrant before searching the information on a cellphone. The unanimous decision Wednesday was written by Chief Justice John Roberts. The court heard two cases raising similar issues April 29, Riley v. California, which involved the search of a smartphone, and United States v. Brima Wurie, which involved the search of a less sophisticated flip phone (WID April 30 p9).
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Cellphones are not “just another technological convenience,” Roberts wrote (http://1.usa.gov/1qJ6LoT). “With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans ’the privacies of life.'” That commonly available technologies allow someone “to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought,” he said.
Cellphones are now so pervasive that “the proverbial visitor from Mars might conclude they were an important feature of human anatomy,” Roberts wrote. Smartphones are much more than a simple phone, he said. “They could just as easily be called cameras, video players, rolodexes, calendars, tape recorders, libraries, diaries, albums, televisions, maps, or newspapers.” Roberts acknowledged that the ruling is a loss for police. Cellphones are “important tools in facilitating coordination and communication among members of criminal enterprises, and can provide valuable incriminating information about dangerous criminals,” he wrote. “Privacy comes at a cost."
The government argued that unless a phone is searched immediately it could be electronically wiped of all data. Roberts said police have tools to prevent that. They can place it in a “Faraday bag,” a shield that keeps it from connecting to the network, or simply take out the battery, he said.
The ruling “assures individuals their photos, letters, travel records and other documents revealing their lives have the same protection on their mobile phone as information stored in a desk at home,” said Computer & Communications Industry Association President Ed Black. “By recognizing that the digital revolution has transformed our expectations of privacy, today’s decision is itself revolutionary and will help to protect the privacy rights of all Americans,” said Steven Shapiro, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. CTIA did not comment.
The ruling is “a wake-up call that we need to update our laws to keep pace with technological advances,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said in a statement, praising the ruling. “Just as the government must now obtain a warrant to look through the contents of our cell phones, I believe the same standard should apply when the government wants to look through our emails.” Leahy backs an update to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and called for its swift passage. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said cellphones “today contain vast amounts of sensitive information about our personal lives, and as a result, law enforcement should need to obtain a warrant before they can access it."
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called the decision “a huge win for individual privacy” and “the next step, in my view, is to treat GPS information the same way,” Wyden said. “Our bipartisan GPS Act provides law enforcement with a clear mandate for when to obtain a warrant for the geolocation information of an American, and I aim to use this decision as a springboard to secure greater privacy rights in the days ahead.”,