[url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/25/supreme-court-cell-phone-privacy_n_5529368.html]Police need a warrant to search your phone now.[/url]
[quote]Police officers must get a warrant before searching the contents of a cell phone seized during an arrest, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday, an opinion that amounts to a sweeping endorsement of digital privacy.
"Modern cell phones are not just another technological convenience. With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans 'the privacies of life,'" Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the opinion.
"The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought. Our answer to the question of what police must do before searching a cell phone seized incident to an arrest is accordingly simple — get a warrant."
Roberts shot down the Obama administration's argument that searching a cell phone is “materially indistinguishable” from physical searches.
"That is like saying a ride on horseback is materially indistinguishable from a flight to the moon," he said.[/quote]
I hope that this case is used as precedent when the NSA's mass collection of data is inevitably brought before the court. Interestingly, the opinion brings up the fact that a lot of our data is stored on cloud servers that are owned by third parties, and that that data should also be protected. I think that this is the first time that the Supreme Court has said that cloud data is similar to data that is stored with its owner, actually. Hopefully, this ruling brings us closer to having the 4th Amendment broadened.
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Well that was actually something I enjoyed learning today. I wonder what it will lead to in the future.