Calif. Appeals Court Approves Cell Phone Searches

Local ID10T writes with this excerpt from The Blaze: "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. ... 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." Interesting additional commentary, too, from UCSD law professor Shaun Martin.

Comments

This ruling does not last long.

[www.sorehands.com]

As a result of the Court's ruling, the legislature overruled the court by passing a law that provides privacy protection for mobile devices.

See http://www.californiality.com/2011/09/california-mobile-device-privacy-law.html

Re:Passcode

[hypergreatthing]

They don't manually go through it. There are devices they plug into the usb/charger port if it's a smartphone and will download everything to the device. Doesn't matter if you have a password. More info here:
http://www.cellebrite.com/forensic-products/forensic-products.html?loc=seg
Of course they'll keep the info, store it in their databases forever. Goodbye privacy.