Oregon Supreme Court urged to block warrantless cell phone searches

[Playinghardball]

Source: Raw Story
By Eric W. Dolan

A digital rights organization told the Oregon Supreme Court that allowing law enforcement officials to search arrestees' cell phones violates privacy protections guaranteed by the Constitution.

In the case Oregon v. Nix, police officers searched through the data on a criminal suspect's cell phone after he had been arrested and placed in a holding cell. The officers did not obtain a warrant for the search, claiming that the search was "incident to arrest," an exception to the warrant requirement that lets officers search for weapons or prevent evidence from being destroyed.

In an amicus brief filed Friday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation argued that law enforcement officials should not be able to search the cell phone of a criminal suspect without a warrant.

Read more at: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/04/04/oregon-supreme-court-urged-to-block-warrantless-cell-phones-searches/

[cascadiance]

1. Unfortunately the legislature has already passed a law to force PC repair shops to search...

your computer for child porn or face fines/jail not doing so, even if they don't have any sort of probable cause. Basically your computer's privacy is completely out the window if you take it in now.

This of course would not be legal if law enforcement were to do this without probable cause and a warrant to do so. So, I hope they don't follow that same mentality in this area too. EFF and the ACLU will have their hands full here.