No Warrant Needed by Police to Search Phones, Says Calif.
Jan 4, 2011, 2:15 PM by Eric M. Zeman
The California Supreme Court recently ruled that police have the right to search the cell phones of anyone taken into custody. Citing U.S. law, the California Supreme Court noted, "This loss of privacy allows police not only to seize anything of importance they find on the arrestee's body... but also to open and examine what they find." The ruling was approved with a 5-2 vote. The dissenting justices said that the law shouldn't be extended to cover cell phones, which can carry extensive amounts of personal and business information. A year ago, an Ohio court reached the opposite conclusion, and said that police had violated the rights of a man whose cell phone was searched during an arrest. With opposing rulings made by different states, it could spur the U.S. Supreme Court to take the matter into its own hands.
more info at Slashdot »
more info at SFGate »
AD
Comments
This forum is closed.
