Last Thursday, the United States Supreme Court heard argument in Carpenter v. United States. At issue was whether the FBI violated the Fourth Amendment when it obtained the cellphone location records of the Timothy...more
In Carpenter v. United States, federal investigators sought cellphone location data for a set of persons suspected in a series of robberies. The Fourth Amendment prevents the government from conducting unreasonable searches...more
The centrality of cell phones to our daily lives, and the wide array of sensitive information those phones may carry, creates a complex and ever-evolving series of issues over the amount of privacy we can expect to be...more
With the spotlight on one high-profile battle that pits privacy rights against public safety interests, another crucial, similar dispute is making its way through the courts. How to evaluate new technology and its potential...more
SUMMARY - In a seminal decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Riley v. California and United States v. Wurie that police need a warrant justified by probable cause to search a cellphone seized incident to lawful...more
Last year, the Supreme Court in Riley v. California (134 S. Ct. 2473 (2014)) recognized the unique characteristics of laptops and cellphones and held that police generally may not search the cellphone of an individual who has...more
The modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence surrounding warrantless searches of text messaging is varied and evolving, including issues currently facing Rhode Island and the rest of the nation. My paper focused primarily upon...more
On June 25, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court issued one groundbreaking opinion in two cases regarding cellphone searches incident to arrest. In a unanimous opinion, the court held that under the Fourth Amendment, police must...more
The United States Supreme Court has ruled that police officers must generally secure a warrant before searching through the contents of a cell phone of a person they arrest. This decision will have important implications for...more
In the waning days of its current term, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in California v. Riley that police officers generally violate the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches by conducting a...more
Fourth Amendment law is anything but static. If one surveys the jurisprudential landscape over the last 50 years, there are three amendments that the U.S. Supreme Court cannot leave alone: the First, the Fourth and the Fifth....more
The long-standing test for searching students at school requires that the search must be based on a “reasonable suspicion” that the student violated a school rule or law. A recent criminal decision from the United States...more
The Supreme Court of the United States released a unanimous decision last week barring law enforcement from searching the mobile phones of individuals placed under arrest without first obtaining a search warrant or the...more
One of the fundamental liberties protected by the Bill of Rights is freedom from unreasonable searches. The Fourth Amendment reflects the concern that “We the People” should not be subjected to intrusive searches of our...more
In a unanimous decision issued last week, the Supreme Court ruled that police cannot search the cell phones of arrested individuals without a warrant. In reaching its decision, the Court recognized that there is an immense...more
In a decision that changes the way law enforcement officers collect electronic information, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Riley v. California, 573 U.S. ___ (2014), that officers may not search a cell phone incident to a...more
On June 25, 2014, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that police must first obtain a warrant before searching the cell phones of arrested individuals, except in “exigent circumstances.” Chief Justice John Roberts authored...more
On June 25th, the Supreme Court brought the Fourth Amendment into the digital age with its ruling in Riley v. California. The case presented the question of whether a warrant was required in order for law enforcement to...more
On June 25, 2014, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Riley v. California, No. 13-132, and United States v. Wurie, No. 13-212, holding that police must generally obtain a warrant before searching a cell phone...more
In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled this week in Riley v. California that police generally may not conduct a warrantless search of digital data stored on the cell phone of someone who has been arrested. The...more
The Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, limited the ability of law enforcement to search cell phones while making arrests, requiring police to obtain a search warrant before examining the data contained in an arrestee’s...more
Overview: Today, the U.S. Supreme Court held that police officers may not search digital information on a mobile phone device seized from a person who has been arrested without a warrant. In Riley v. California and U.S. v....more
In Riley v. California, the United States Supreme Court unanimously held that the Fourth Amendment prohibits police officers from searching through the data on an arrested suspect's cell phone as an "incident to the arrest"...more
Recent revelations concerning the activities of the National Security Agency (“NSA”) include reports that the NSA and other government agencies have – in secret – routinely collected in bulk the “metadata” associated with...more