Court OKs searches of cell phones without warrant

You just have to love this:

The California Supreme Court allowed police Monday to search arrestees' cell phones without a warrant, saying defendants lose their privacy rights for any items they're carrying when taken into custody.

Under U.S. Supreme Court precedents, "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 state court said in a 5-2 ruling.

Praise Mao, from whom all blessings flow;
praise him, all creatures here below;
praise him above, ye Statist host;
praise Dictator, Kleptocrat, and Parasitic Host.

I guess the 4th Amendment is something of history. Between this, and the illegal Police " Checkpoints" , its safe to conclude that the Police State is here, and maybe, just maybe Alex Jones was right?

I don't like this decision. However, it's not surprising. In fact, I always assumed that the police would sift through my private belongings if I were ever arrested. Thus, I keep all of my cell phone info/contacts/text messages coded in "Aggie Man" speak. Not that I have anything to hide, but still...why give the law an upper-hand if they choose to single me out to satisfy their quotas.

now who is laughing when i say "jig bush", i saw it coming but who listened??? a death of a nation will go unnoticed when no one sees the signs, first there was the PATRIOT ACT then the NSA wire taps TSA search, now this there is not much more they can take.

This isn't surprising they've shown it on TV for as long as I can remember cell phones being around; although, I do remember seeing one show where they were waiting around for the warrant to search the phone. I don't see how it is legal though - searching one's possessions is one thing but searching one's thoughts is another and today the cell phone will have all text messages and e-mail which have been sent which would reveal a person's relationships as well as thoughts. Given the (maybe-not-so) future-tech of reading a person's mind does the ruling mean that a person's thoughts become accessible to the police state without a warrant simply because the person was arrested? That is the pre-crime path we'll eventually come to.

Menu > Settings > Reset > Master Reset.
Deletes all information on phone. Make them have to work if they want to see what was on it...
Did anyone really think big brother would let them have privacy ?

The one positive thing that comes out of this in my opinion is the fact of we have two different states interpreting this type of search completely different. Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that they must gain a search warrant and California say they don't.

The positive is that with two states at odds, it is more likely to elevate to the Supreme Court. Of course, this does not guarantee that the Supreme Court will rule in favor of the 4th Amendment which reads as follows:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Most notably it gives a chance for the People to get protection of their "...effects". Which is what the 4th Amendment was supposed to protect.

The easy fall back that the State makes though is that the searches fall under 'reasonable' and thus are not afforded the protection of the 4th Amendment. This is similar to the arguments being made to in regard of the TSA practices at the airports.

If they have a person under arrest for suspicion of a crime, it would be reasonable to assume that a judge would allow the issue of a warrant for the persons effects.

I think though the dissenting judges made weak arguments. The San Fransisco Gate reports that "[T]he dissenting justices said those rulings shouldn't be extended to modern cell phones that can store huge amounts of data."

To me, if that was their dissenting argument then they really were not arguing the case for the 4th Amendment.

By the sounds of it, this is local to california law.

States still have sovereign rights for their police law.

Of course it's unconstitutional . Crap like this really tends to tick me off . It's none of their *%&^#@)*^ business what is in my phone .

I actually had to deal with this one time . A pissed-off female acquaintance left my house in a huff after we had a row over her stealing something from Wallyworld .

Unknown to me , she stole my cellphone before leaving . I went down to the SO the next day to report the theft of my phone .

Well , guess what ? Those bastards wouldn't even take a report from me . They told me the DA now had possession of my phone and that he wanted to talk to me about something that he had listened to from my voice mail . Seems the pissed-off female had also listened to my voice mail and found an incriminating message left there by a friend of my ex-girlfriend . So this biotch took it down and gave it to the police .

They said if I wanted the phone back , I would have to talk to the DA . What kind of crap is that ???

The phone was stolen , I was not allowed to file a report , and then the DA goes and listens to my messages without a warrant .

I told them to kiss my *+^&%$)#(@ ass , and cancelled the phone .

Bottom line , they do just what they want to do , with or without authorization .

They can all rot in hell .

Well, it's about time. As if it weren't rubbing it in our faces enough when they charge a $275 discontinuance fee, just because you don't want a 47% chance of brain cancer after 600 hours of use. So now they want to search your tweets, surprise. When are they simply going to put collars on us?

We PAY to use these devices.....we'll do anything.

reply to post by Whereweheaded

Soon, the internet, as it served as a conduit of free speech, will be weaponized, turned against us. Who would have thought???

Gee, I see a pattern here.

Let's get them to register their thoughts...and as they're pronouncing the hand held radiation devices as being so 'awesome', we build immortal towers, install the necessary laws and patrols, and use the network of mobile snitches, to haul them in. They'll learn soon enough about mind control, thought processing, and that we had it all along. We just needed a believable method by which to do the arrests. ha ha.

"Hi...I'm a mobile T-4..." (as seen on TV)

Oh, really? You look like a paid whore, to me, with carefully selected multi ethnic attributes and a curvy waistline to subliminally make cell towers seem sexy, and oh so needed.