I recall being stopped by a cop near Chicago on
Labor Day 1997 for speeding. He let me
go without a ticket, and noticed my authored books in the back seat (I was
driving to Minneapolis to move). He felt
reassured that a writer like me wouldn’t have drugs or weapons. I thought that was whimsical.
The cases before the Supreme Court today (U.S. v. Wurie
and Riley v. California) are thought to have major implications for civil
liberties in search and seizure law regarding cell phones, and perhaps laptops,
notebooks and tablets, regarding whether police officers need a warrant or what
kind of legal standard of cause they should meet before making a search. The issues are laid out by Jeff John Roberts
on Gigaom here. He mentions the use of Faraday bags to scan
the devices safely, as explained here. The Faraday bag issue is interesting because
Faraday cages or protection could protect electronic equipment in case of an
EMP attack. Faraday bags can be used to preserve evidence on cell phones
without fully searching them.
The Volokh Conspiracy discusses the case (and the “Robinson
rule” v. a computer specific rule) in an article by Orin Kerr, link here.
I wouldn’t have been too happy with having to
surrender my computers in transit for a routine traffic stop.
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