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Poll: appropriate search or invasioninvasion of privacy (24) 89% appropriate search (3) 11% 27 total votes Your vote: appropriate search or invasion (Vote): appropriate search
(Vote): invasion of privacy
So I cam across a news article about a traffic stop in California which i will paste below. Apparently the Appellate court of California feels that if you are stop for a traffic violation(speeding, running a red light, no turn signal etc...) the police officers who pulls you over can rummage through your cell phone. Think about this for a moment, they can literally go through anything in your phone; emails, texts, web browsing, call log etc. for the minor est of offenses. For me personally this is an issue as my phone is issued via work, and sometimes I have receive confidential emails with PHI(protected health information) that is protected by HIPPA.
And like majority of everyone else in the "free world" I have text and such from friends that might not be appropriate and be easily taken out of context. Apparently the court feels that smartphones are akin to a cardboard box with an open lid. If a cop would really think I'm some criminal mastermind why not just take the time a get a search warrent where they would actually have to disclose a valid reason for needing to go through my phone. I'm not a genius but I fail to see a correlation between you need to go through my cell phone because i went 30 in a 25.
I am fortunate to not live in a state that presently does this, but its quite concerning to see that this was actually upheld but judges. I wonder how they would feel if they got pulled over and actually had to go through this. But we all know how that is, they show their credentials and they are back on the road.
In a case explicitly decided to set a precedent, the California Appellate court has determined police officers can rifle through your cellphone during a traffic violation stop.
This is not the first time such a law has been under scrutiny. In April, the Blaze told you about the extraction devices police were using in Michigan to download the entire contents of your phone.
Florida and Georgia are among the states that give no protection to a phone during a search. In particular, Florida law treats a smartphone as a “container” for the purposes of a search, similar to say a cardboard box open on the passenger seat, despite the thousands of personal emails, contacts, and photos a phone can carry stretching back years.
But after initially striking down cell phone snooping, California has now joined the list of states that allow cops to go through your phone without a warrant.
It all began with a traffic stop, and a driver with some gun photos on his phone.
Here are the facts of California vs. Nattoli as presented by the newspaper.com.
On December 6, 2009 Reid Nottoli was pulled over for speeding by Santa Cruz County Deputy Sheriff Steven Ryan. Sheriff Ryan then suspected after pulling Nottoli over that the 25-year-old was under the influence of drugs.
As Nottoli’s license was also expired, the Sheriff decided to impound the vehicle. Nottoli requested to leave his car parked on the side of the road. Sheriff Ryan refused, and decided to conduct an “inventory” search prior to the towing.
Sheriff Ryan later testified that Nottoli was not driving erratically, nor was he arrested for driving under the influence. But the case took a turn that has brought up major privacy concerns when Sheriff Ryan searched Nottoli’s vehicle. The Deputy found:
“A fully legal Glock 20 pistol with a Guncrafter Industries 50 GI conversion that should have been stored in the trunk of the vehicle. He also noticed Nottoli’s Blackberry Curve which, after it was turned on, displayed a photograph of a mask-wearing man holding two AR-15 rifles akimbo.”
Apparently, the photo of the AR-15 rifles peaked the sheriff’s interest, and another deputy went through all the contents on Nattoli’s phone. It was not until later that Sheriff Ryan obtained a search warrant for it.
Based on the information from the Blackberry, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team exercised a search warrant of the Natoli home ten days later. The SWAT team found and confiscated a cache of weapons, marijuana-growing paraphernalia, and $15,000 in cash.
Nattoli‘s lawyers argued at trial that the Sheriff Deputy’s search through the cell phone was a violation of the 4th Amendment, and that all evidence found in the car should be excluded under “fruit of the poisoned tree” doctrine. The judge agreed and ordered the information suppressed at trial.
The appellate court overturned that ruling, however, on the grounds that the search of the cellphone was part of the inventory check needed to process an impounded car.
Furthermore, the judge ruled that the examination of the cell phone was legal because police were allowed to survey the impounded car for their own safety, and to preserve evidence.
This decision was released solely to create a precedent for future cases, as Nattoli died on September 4th. So the most important outcome of the case is the appellate court’s decision, written by Franklin Elia, which read in part:
“The deputies had unqualified authority under Gant to search the passenger compartment of the vehicle and any container found therein, including Reid’s cell phone. It is up to the US Supreme Court to impose any greater limits on officers’ authority to search incident to arrest.”
We may well see this case head to the Supreme Court, as it appears anytime you are pulled over in the state of California, your entire cell phone is now fair game.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/calif-appeals-court-approves-cell-phone-searches-during-traffic-stops/
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I live in california and this law is news to me...
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Man what the fuck. For a supposed hippie haven, Cali does some really conservative as fuck things at times. I can't find this stuff on any more prominent site, but it does come up on a whole lot of blogs.
simple solution is just to go into your glove before the officer comes to your window to get your papers and then lock the phone in there. But still, damn...
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This is going to higher level courts pretty soon, I imagine.
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wow i would just take pictures of my ass beforehand and just troll the shit out of them, that's your personal shit and off limits
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They do this all of the time when someone stupid has a stupid accident to make sure they weren't talking on the cell while driving. (It is against the law to use a cell phone without a hands free device while driving here).
Evidence is evidence, of course getting the warrant first would have been the smart thing to do, but the car was impounded and it was going to lock up as well.
The guy was a piece of shit anyway, and it was probably a good thing they found this information. Oh well freedom comes at a price anyway.
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Have a pin number, accidentally forget pin number because you are in a stressful situation, success.
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Assuming they're only looking for times to see whether you were on the phone at the time of the violation, it's little different than a breathalyzer. :/
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On October 05 2011 05:26 Kralic wrote:
They do this all of the time when someone stupid has a stupid accident to make sure they weren't talking on the cell while driving. (It is against the law to use a cell phone without a hands free device while driving here).
Evidence is evidence, of course getting the warrant first would have been the smart thing to do, but the car was impounded and it was going to lock up as well.
The guy was a piece of shit anyway, and it was probably a good thing they found this information. Oh well freedom comes at a price anyway.
Yeah, but for the example you gave its not only a smart thing to get the warrant first, its really the only legal thing to do.
I don't understand yet why looking through someone's entire cellphone records (without a warrant) is the equivalent of searching through compartments in the car to protect the officers who are going to impound the car. There doesn't seem to be any direct, logical reasoning behind this. Its just a vague idea that, cellphone are like boxes, and since boxes can contain dangerous items in real life, we should also check electronic boxes!!!!
It sounds really silly  . At least from what the OP wrote...maybe I'll look into this in more detail.
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This sounds terrible to me. I don't like when people root through my things. My college is having fire-code inspections for two weeks starting today, and they do random room checks. I don't really like that too much, but I can see where they're coming from.
I don't like how these officers are just allowed to search your personal phone without a warrant, or some semblance of justification. I tend to keep some very personal things on my phone...
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@kralic I am unsure of constitutional law in Canada, but in the US illegal search and seisure is covered under the 4th amendment. If the probable cause is there then getting one from a judge should not be an issue at all. The issue of the guy being a piece of shit is irrelevant; that becomes then a discussion of "oh i think soandso is up to no good". The constitution is quite clear on the way to proceed. By allowing for certain instances you will open pandora's box
@lastchance: I am not sure if Santa Cruz has the devices, but there is equipment that will bypass phone security procedures and download the necessary data. Digital Forensic teams with the appropriate software can recover data off hard drives wiped dozens of times.
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I dropped a link of the article on facebook and one of my friends who is a lawyer posted this thought/statement
"I'm curious as well to how this will play out on a locked phone. Or how this has been applied to laptops. There's no difference between the two at this level with respect to being information storage devices capable of mobile transportation. And that would open a whole lot of loopholes for searches. Got a suspect and can't nail him enough to get a warrant for the computer? Wait until he's driving with his laptop and drum up some PC."
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On October 05 2011 05:59 lvent wrote:
@kralic I am unsure of constitutional law in Canada, but in the US illegal search and seisure is covered under the 4th amendment. If the probable cause is there then getting one from a judge should not be an issue at all. The issue of the guy being a piece of shit is irrelevant; that becomes then a discussion of "oh i think soandso is up to no good". The constitution is quite clear on the way to proceed. By allowing for certain instances you will open pandora's box
Yeah I do not know much about the American rights.
I am basing their judgment on this case alone though. Not a so and so is possibly up to no good.
1) He was driving with an expired license.
2) He was suspected to be under the influence of drugs and operating a vehicle.
3) He had loose guns in his back or front seat the article did not specify.
4) He had a cell phone that was on, with the screen showing a picture of a guy in a mask holding two AR 15's.
How they came to pull him over it does not say, and that could also be a reason to why this case was so special.
If the cell phone was off would they have searched it right away? Who knows.
When this comes up again and it is happening to someone who hasn't commited any crime other then speeding or any other routine traffic violation, then this would be more concerning. The orgy of evidence was in sight of the police and they acted on that while doing "inventory" on the impounded car. Is it right? No of course not, but the guy wasn't exactly a saint when they pulled him over.
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On October 05 2011 05:07 FinestHour wrote:
I live in california and this law is news to me...
it was made awhile ago it's to catch people who call/text while driving but mostly set though precedence in cases like that of the op's, it's part of the crack down on ppl crashing into shit because they are too much of a dumb ass to realize that a 1 ton car traveling at 40+ mph does alot of dmg when it's put to a abrupt stop. Technically speaking the law only applies if they see your cellphone in plain sight. Ofc this is all a matter of the police officers digression, often how you look and address a police officer matters how much he's going to throw the book at you. Unless a kid got hit or people reported wreckless driving in the area and they have to use a no mercy policy in that area for awhile.
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Its really tough to say because if a cop wanted to check your phone to see if you were texting and driving the time stamps would be important. But at the same time there are inside jokes that friends really understand and what someone else might take as a serious threat (ex. "I'm gonna whoop your ass today boy") is something i might say to my friend as a joke if were about to play basketball. But the officer might see it as a threat and charge me.
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If they pull you over and you put your phone in the glove compartment (assume its locked), they can't get to your phone then, can they?
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On October 05 2011 06:24 Kralic wrote:
How they came to pull him over it does not say, and that could also be a reason to why this case was so special.
He was going 90 in a 65, and the phone was only searched after Reid was already in custody for speeding, driving without a license, driving under the influence of drugs, and having a loaded handgun in the passenger compartment of his car.
The article makes it sound like the cop pulled this guy over and demanded he hand over his cell phone to be searched. That's not what happened at all. The only reason this guy's phone was searched was because he was being arrested for driving under the influence of drugs. When you're arrested, the cops are allowed to search your possessions, including the passenger compartment of your car, for weapons and evidence relevant to the crime you're being arrested for*; it wasn't unreasonable at all for his cell phone to be included in that search since phones are used for drug deals. The court goes beyond that simple rationale to hold that a phone is just like any other container, and I can't really argue against that. What's the practical difference between a phone and an address book, photo album, camcorder, etc.? Police are allowed to look at those for evidence so why not your phone too?
Here's a good section of the opinion regarding the law from the Supreme Court:
As to application of the newly articulated justification for a vehicular search incident to arrest, the Supreme Court in Gant explained: "In many cases, as when a recent occupant is arrested for a traffic violation, there will be no reasonable basis to believe the vehicle contains relevant evidence. . . But in others, including Belton and Thornton, the offense of arrest will supply a basis for searching the passenger compartment of an arrestee's vehicle and any containers therein." (Id. at p. 1719.) In the Gant case "[n]either the possibility of access nor the likelihood of discovering offense-related evidence authorized the search . . . ." (Ibid.) The offense for which Gant was arrested, driving with a suspended license, was "an offense for which police could not expect to find evidence in the passenger compartment of Gant's car. . . The court concluded that "because police could not reasonably have believed either that Gant could have accessed his car at the time of the search or that evidence of the offense for which he was arrested might have been found therein, the search . . . was unreasonable." (Id. at p. 1719.)
This gem is good for a laugh:
Deputy Gonzales looked through the cell phone's text messages, photographs and emails for about 10 minutes. Deputy Gonzales found many photographs of different firearms. At the scene, Deputy Ryan was shown five text messages, two photographs of guns, and an email. The text messages related to marijuana cultivation. There was an email receipt from gunbroker.net for "the purchase of incendiary projectiles for 50 BMG caliber." Incendiary projectiles contain highly flammable material that may set an object on fire upon impact. They are illegal in California.
* This is an oversimplification. I'm not writing a legal treatise.
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EPT
