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Articles Tagged with warrant

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September 8, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Here is an interesting technology case from the Third Circuit as reported by the Wall Street Journal blog.

Technology has made it increasingly easy for the government to track an individual’s whereabouts.

But on Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the Third Circuit ratcheted back the government’s surveillance power, finding that judges have the right to require warrants before police get cell phone records that could pinpoint a customer’s location. Clickhere for the AP story; here for the Legal Intelligencer story; herefor the opinion, written by Judge Dolores Sloviter.

No search of cellphone without warrant?

December 26, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Thanks to howappealing.law.com, here is a Ohio State Supreme Court opinion in State v. Smith. The issue is warrantless searches of cell-phones. While this issue may have been raised in a court-martial, I don’t see a relevant military appellate decision. So the issue is apparently an open one for court-martial cases.

Here is a link to a New York Times editorial on the Ohio case.

The Ohio Supreme Court has struck an important blow for privacy rights, ruling that the police need a warrant to search a cellphone. The court rightly recognized that cellphones today are a lot more than just telephones, that they hold a wealth of personal information and that the privacy interest in them is considerable. This was the first such ruling from a state supreme court. It is a model for other courts to follow.