[ad_1] When police arrested a suspect named Joseph Sam in Washington state last year, an officer hit a button on the man’s phone to bring up its lock screen. Months later, an FBI agent turned the phone on to take a photograph of the lock screen, which contained evidence in the form of a contact, […]
Category: warrant
Google location data led police to investigate an innocent cyclist
[ad_1] The initial data had been anonymized like Google said it would in the past, but police had asked Google to provide information about McCoy’s account after noticing the unusual activity. Google notified McCoy of the request on January 14th of this year, but he had just a week to ask a court to block […]
Police must get warrants to obtain personal data from cars
[ad_1] After a deadly car crash, Georgia police downloaded data from the Event Data Recorder on Mobley’s car to determine his speed before the crash, using that to level more severe accusations against him. Georgia has contended that this was legal under the Fourth Amendment’s “vehicle exception” allowing searches for physical items, but the ACLU […]
Senators propose legislation to protect your phone at the border
[ad_1] In addition to needing a warrant, the “Protecting Data at the Border Act” would prevent agents from denying access to US citizens who refuse to hand over devices, passwords or log-in credentials. Though, federal agents could override the need for a warrant in the event of immediate danger, conspiratorial activities threatening national security or […]
border agents regularly perform ‘warrantless’ device searches
[ad_1] Agency policies let officers search devices for generic law enforcement purposes like investigating bankruptcies and consumer portection laws, the ACLU said. Officers can also search devices to collect data about someone else, such as a friend that might be an illegal immigrant or the foreign sources for a journalist. CBP and ICE can also […]