BOSTON (AP) — The highest court in Massachusetts has ruled that police do not necessarily need a search warrant to look at a list of cellphone calls made by someone who has been arrested.
The unanimous decision issued by the Supreme Judicial Court on Wednesday does not apply to other cellphone contents, including text messages and emails.
The case involved a drug dealer who was arrested in July 2011. Police found his cellphone number on a phone owned by a known drug user.
A district court judge ruled that police acted within their legal authority because police have long been allowed to search for evidence of a crime from the person and their belongings when they are booking someone at the police station. The high court agreed.
Privacy experts questioned the decision.
Big Brother will get you one way or another!
this is complete bull.. what about the privacy of others sending messages to that Phone that has nothing to do with what that person does
looks like we will all have to have fancy locks on our phones
Or else a self destruct button.
This is all because Obamas Minnie-Me DEVAL pushed this through. We are losing our rights day by day. Most of us, myself included aren’t on the wrong side of the law and thereby not directly affected by this decision.. But nonetheless this is privacy and constitution violations. Why people vote these type of people office is beyond me. The Library of Congress has every tweet if you have twitter archived. I guess when Bush was in office and passed H.R. 4709 (109th): Telephone Records and Privacy Protection Act of 2006 – we can kiss it goodbye.
Oh Paris, you scream politics when in fact; our states Supreme Court is comprised of judges appointed by Former Governers Weld (R), Celluci (R) and current governor Patrick (D). If your point was valid the justices would not have voted UNANIMOUSLY. Read the article and stop always trying to pin blame on the people who had nothing to do with the outcome of their decision. Clearly this is a proactive approach to combat drug related crimes.
Correct, but sadly their palms are greased by your/our current Government past and present. It is clearly another violation of a citizens right to privacy and believe me I am all for getting scum bags off the street. There is massive amounts of abuse of power in this country. How in the hell would anyone be able to ONLY view phone calls and not view texts or other contents when reviewing the contents of someones cell phone. Are we going to have to then educate law enforcement on how to use each and every kind of cell phone out there so as to not accidently view other content? Think about that. Again, I am not defending criminals. I just question the privacy rights violation on this one. As more information comes out, maybe my position will change.
they can’t search your phone if it is secure . most phones have security codes . i know mine does !!! what are they going to water board me for the code ? but that said you are searched of your person when arrested . if that means your phone is on you then it gets searched also . the only criminal government is worried about are it’s competition.
Did you know that if you have a TWITTER ACCOUNT, that every Tweet you have sent out is recorded and archived in the library of Congress. If that is not Big Brother, I don’t know what is.