EnglishLady
Veteran Expediter
US Court Curbs Police Mobile-Phone Searches
The US Supreme Court has unanimously ruled police may not search the mobile phones of anyone they arrest without a search warrant.
Chief Justice John Roberts said that police must obtain a warrant because the phones contain so much information.
The case sprung from two separate arrests.
In the first, David Riley argued his fourth amendment rights had been violated during his arrest on August 22, 2009, when a routine traffic stop found he had a loaded gun in his car.
The police officers who arrested Riley took his phone and searched through its messages and images.
Using that information, police then charged him with a shooting several weeks earlier.
In the other case, Brima Wurie, of Boston, was arrested on drug-dealing charge.
While Wurie was being processed at the police station, his mobile phone received calls from a number labelled "my house".
Police traced the call to a local address, which they obtained a warrant to search.
They brought additional charges against Wurie after finding drugs and a pistol on the premises.
The felon argued the phone search had breached his rights under the fourth, fifth and sixth amendments.
More follows...
The US Supreme Court has unanimously ruled police may not search the mobile phones of anyone they arrest without a search warrant.
Chief Justice John Roberts said that police must obtain a warrant because the phones contain so much information.
The case sprung from two separate arrests.
In the first, David Riley argued his fourth amendment rights had been violated during his arrest on August 22, 2009, when a routine traffic stop found he had a loaded gun in his car.
The police officers who arrested Riley took his phone and searched through its messages and images.
Using that information, police then charged him with a shooting several weeks earlier.
In the other case, Brima Wurie, of Boston, was arrested on drug-dealing charge.
While Wurie was being processed at the police station, his mobile phone received calls from a number labelled "my house".
Police traced the call to a local address, which they obtained a warrant to search.
They brought additional charges against Wurie after finding drugs and a pistol on the premises.
The felon argued the phone search had breached his rights under the fourth, fifth and sixth amendments.
More follows...