Quote:
Originally Posted by I B Hankering
They must stipulate what they are looking for in the warrant. The nude pictures of your girlfriend are off-limits: in theory.
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Not if the Judge authorizes a search for all photos of "nude females"!
Or all photos of "your girlfriend"!
Or all photos of females.
In the meantime LE gets to keep your phone.
Page 25:
"We cannot deny that our decision today will have an impact on the ability of law enforcement to combat crime. Cell phones have become important tools in facilitating coordination and communication among members of criminal enterprises, and can provide valuable incriminating information about dangerous criminals. Privacy comes at a cost. Our holding, of course, is not that the information on a cell phone is immune from search; it is instead that a warrant is generally required before such a search, evenwhen a cell phone is seized incident to arrest. Our cases have historically recognized that the warrant requirementis “an important working part of our machinery of government,”
Page 26:
"not merely “an inconvenience to be somehow somehow‘weighed’ against the claims of police efficiency.” Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443, 481 (1971). Recent technological advances similar to those discussed here have, in addition, made the process of obtaining a warrant itself more efficient. See McNeely, 569 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 11–12); id., at ___ (ROBERTS, C. J., concurring inpart and dissenting in part) (slip op., at 8) (describing jurisdiction where “police officers can e-mail warrantrequests to judges’ iPads [and] judges have signed suchwarrants and e-mailed them back to officers in less than 15 minutes”).
"Moreover,
even though the search incident to arrest exception does not apply to cell phones, other case-specific exceptions may still justify a warrantless search of a particular phone. “One well-recognized exception applies when ‘“the exigencies of the situation” make the needs oflaw enforcement so compelling that [a] warrantless search is objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.’” Kentucky v. King, 563 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 6) (quoting Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U. S. 385, 394 (1978)). Such exigencies could include the need to prevent the imminent destruction of evidence in individual cases, to pursue a fleeing suspect, and to assist persons who are seriously injured or are threatened with imminent injury. 563 U. S., at ___. In Chadwick, for example, the Court held that the exception for searches incident to arrest did notjustify a search of the trunk at issue, but noted that “if officers have reason to believe that luggage contains some immediately dangerous instrumentality, such as explosives, it would be foolhardy to transport it to the stationhouse without opening the luggage.” 433 U. S., at 15, n. 9.
"In light of the availability of the exigent circumstancesexception, there is no reason to believe that law enforcement officers will not be able to address some of the more extreme hypotheticals that have been suggested: a suspect
Page 27
"texting an accomplice who, it is feared, is preparing todetonate a bomb, or a child abductor who may have information about the child’s location on his cell phone. The defendants here recognize—indeed, they stress—that suchfact-specific threats may justify a warrantless search of cell phone data. See Reply Brief in No. 13–132, at 8–9; Brief for Respondent in No. 13–212, at 30, 41.
The critical point is that, unlike the search incident to arrest exception, the exigent circumstances exception requires a court to examine whether an emergency justified a warrantless search in each particular case. See McNeely, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 6).2"
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions...3-132_8l9c.pdf
Please don't read the headlines or the editor's synopsis in the opinion for a basis for any euphoria and perceive you can now use your cell phone as a "file cabinet" ... unless you want LE to take possession of your "file cabinet" .... FYI: LE can look at it without a warrant, they just MAY NOT be able to use it as evidence against YOU (as the owner/"possessor" of the phone).
SC Limits Cellphone Search
