Courts May Soon Permit Police To Search Phone Without Warrant

Be sure to start regularly removing all personal information, conversations, or private media from your mobile devices if you plan to get into any mischief; police may soon be able to pry into your digital life without warrant. The Supreme Court hopes to determine on Tuesday if The Fourth Amendment should be altered to account for smartphones. The Court will officially address if officers should be permitted an on-the-spot pat-down of your mobile devices. It’s been a grey area in terms of rights for some time. Despite law enforcement currently being able to acquire call, text, and data records after due process, proponents feel this search expansion necessary; no doubt riding on the anti-privacy slogan “If you’re innocent, you have nothing to fear.”

Recent rule of thumb has been to allow police the opportunity to search suspects as well as the immediate area of the incident. The extremes of this vague guideline has had enough influence in numerous cases to require the attention of the Supreme Court. Opinions and levels of understanding seem to come into play in terms of judicial response.

Judge Richard Posner of the United States Court of Appeals was quoted saying “If police are entitled to open a pocket diary to copy the owners address, they should be entitled to turn on a cell phone to learn its number.” The problem is that these aren’t just diaries, nor just cameras, nor just phones. These days, consumer connectivity is at an all-time high and rising. Diving into someone else’s phone is essentially like diving into their business and personal life.

And where does a reasonable search begin and end? What will come of the situation if a suspect utilizes a password and refuses to give it up, I wonder. Or, on another level, imagine an officer asking you for your Facebook password, in order to search through your messages. Perhaps the Supreme Court will enlighten us on the extent of their findings on Tuesday. And perhaps the hyper-connected should consider un-checking their “remember me” boxes.