Your Cell Phone Searched During A Routine Traffice Stop, Without A Search Warrant

[GlockedandLoaded]

actually it did say it was being used in traffic stops

 

[onearmedman]

Charges for what? Destroying your own property?

 

[onearmedman]

If your phone's GPS logs two sets of coordinates along a stretch of road with timestamps, the math could be done to calculate your speed. Is that enough to write a speeding ticket?

Could be... I've had officers scope my CDL logbook and crunch the numbers to see if I might have been speeding.

 

[onearmedman]

this really has nothing to do with what you said I just think it's funny

Even funnier if she had smacked him in the head with the guitar!

 

[onearmedman]

From another forum...
FOR THOSE people who DON'T BELIEVE this story, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you visit this web page and you WILL BE TREATED TO THE MANUFACTURE'S TUTORIALS on what this company's snoop system CAN DO, how they do it and how to use it. (They need the make and model number of the phone to make this snooper work, which is on a sticker under your battery.) It is also on the phone display screen itself - IF THEY CAN GET PAST THE PHONE LOCK, which they seem to NEED TO PLUG IN THE MODEL NUMBER to overcome the phone lock and get the model number from the display, if your "sticker" under the battery is missing....hint, hint.) They can STILL remove the SD card without the phone model number and download anything on the SD card though.

It would appear that THE CONTENTS OF ALL TEXT MESSAGES, EVEN DELETED ONES are still in your phone's memory. ALL phone calls you have made have the pertinent data,including GPS location you were at when making the call recorded but apparently, the voice part of every phone call itself is not recorded on your phone, but according to other things I have read THE VOICE PART OF EVERY PHONE CALL IS RECORDED ELSEWHERE, NOT ON YOUR PHONE. All photos, current and deleted are still there and downloadable.

http://www.cellebrite.com/forensic-p...-tutorial.html

Or... "Better yet, have a few files on your older, non-java/non-smartphone, phone that are virus laden... "

And... I WATCHED THE SHORT TRAINING TUTORIAL VIDEO CLIPS FOR THE MACHINE THE COPS USE.....( http://www.cellebrite.com/forensic-p...-tutorial.html )

They DON'T need your phone's battery to download the info BUT...
They NEED the model number to start the download process.....SO

On MY PHONE there is NO INDICATION EXTERNALLY as to what model it is EXCEPT on the sticker under the battery...
IT'S MY PHONE, I REMOVED THAT ID STICKER.

They can also obtain the model number from searching your phone's data... SO DON'T GIVE THEM THE PHONE UNTIL YOU LOCK IT....and make sure you/they need a password to unlock and turn it on. Pick something you will remember like your High School or town you grew up in, or maiden name of you (or wife).

And my fave... No officer, you may not have my cell phone.
Am I free to go now???

 

[SMS]

actually it did say it was being used in traffic stops

What did? Please provide a source.

 

[donner]

In reference to the Carroll exception, if you have PC for searching a car for a violation of say, trafficing, possession with intent, etc or if you're search under the carroll exception leads you to reasonably believe such a violation exists would you typically also search the phone as a ledger of contacts? I'd say that training and expierence would lead you to believe that most low/mid/high level dealers as well as trafficers uses their cell phones as ledgers, callenders and communication devices in furthering their crime. If this is true, and US v Ross states that you have the same scope with Carroll as you would with a search warrant, why would you not use a device such as this.

Lets use your example. If a cop pulls someone over and believes them to be a dealer they can search the car. Great, that is all the PC they need. Now, say they don't find any drugs, but still believe them to be a dealer, why can the cops then search the cell phone of the person? What if it has your phone number in it because you are college friends with the person? Or maybe exchanged information while in a fender bender? The cops may not know the scope of these deals, but because you are in a drug dealer's cell phone, you are suddenly part of an investigation because someone's cell phone was searched. Now, if no drugs were found, does the cop have to let the dealer go? Or can he be held because of 'suspicious text messages'? "I'm running late, but i'll be there in 5 minutes with the stuff." It doesn't matter that the cop doesn't know what kind of 'stuff' you are talking about. So again, what happens to the information that was discovered from the phone? Is it deleted or downloaded and later dissected?

Now, for the other scenario. The cop pulls someone over and suspects they are dealing. A carroll search yields drugs. The subject is arrested and a warrant is issued for the contents of the cell phone.

As for your paranoia comments. I'm generally not a big tin foil type of guy. Neither are several of the posters in this thread. What I don't like, though, is the slippery slope that many of theses things seem to go down. The fight against government intrusion always needs to be fought early, because if it's not then we end up with the Patriot act and laws that just wont die. All i have asked for in my posts is for someone to show me why this should be allowed without a warrant. I have never said i have a problem with the device, only that it can be used without a warrant.

 

[Hobbes]

Regarding the question of IF the MSP are using these devices without a warrant:

There are several sources claiming that it is in fact happening.

The police don’t even need a warrant to scan your phone. They can pull your information without your consent, and without any reasonable cause. The Cellebrite UFED scanner has been used by MSP since at least August 2008.

It would be one thing if these scanners are being used on people who were suspected of a crime, but police officers are scanning the phones of drivers stopped in minor traffic violations.

http://www.geek.com/articles/news/m...-phones-data-in-less-than-2-minutes-20110421/


What is more telling is that the MSP won't even deny the charge. They just don't comment.
If they would issue a statement that flat out denies the charge I would be inclined to believe them.


This snippet from PM discusses some of the legal ramifications:

We wanted to know exactly how the Fourth Amendment applies when it came to traffic stops and phones, so we spoke with Fourth Amendment expert Wayne Logan, at the Florida State University. "One way to conceive of the Fourth Amendment is as an off-and-on switch," he says. "It's not on if it's not a search or a seizure, and it's not on if the citizen consents to the search or seizure." Logan told us that there is currently disagreement in the courts about whether cellphones, and smartphones in particular, can be searched after a person is arrested. "One way of looking at it is that phones are just like any other container. Let's say I'm stopped for speeding and the police find cocaine, and then I'm arrested for cocaine possession; the police could search my car. They could also search any duffel bags that were in my car, and let's say that I had a box of notecards—they could search that. If [an officer] can search that container of notecards, the question becomes: Can he also search my iPhone, which also contains note cards of a sort? But the other argument is that it differs completely in kind, since the type of information on the phone is so different." Logan agrees that, if not under arrest, a citizen is under no legal obligation to surrender a phone. But it is unclear whether people have been volunteering their phones to the Michigan State Police or police seized those phones during arrests.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/tec...scan-your-phone-during-a-traffic-stop-5587825



And Finally, here is the ACLU press release regarding the issue:
http://www.aclumich.org/issues/privacy-and-technology/2011-04/1542

The ACLU has been seeking this information for 2 1/2 years now and have gotten nothing but stonewalling.

 

[poopgiggle]

Honestly I just want to see this litigated. Digital evidence is still a pretty new thing and it would be nice to have more precedent.

 

[Glocktogo]

I would have no issue with patrol officers carrying wiretapping equipmet, if they have room for it in their vehicle. They use of the equipment would and is governed by case law, and policy and procedures. Maybe I'm not paranoid enough, but I do not fear technology. If you don't like the use of this device to aide in compiling a case that's fine, whenever you work the street you can build your cases without it. I don't believe that a specific tool should be unavailabe because someone thinks it cuts out the 'leg work'.

In reference to the Carroll exception, if you have PC for searching a car for a violation of say, trafficing, possession with intent, etc or if you're search under the carroll exception leads you to reasonably believe such a violation exists would you typically also search the phone as a ledger of contacts? I'd say that training and expierence would lead you to believe that most low/mid/high level dealers as well as trafficers uses their cell phones as ledgers, callenders and communication devices in furthering their crime. If this is true, and US v Ross states that you have the same scope with Carroll as you would with a search warrant, why would you not use a device such as this.
I have not, nor will I most likely ever use one of these. I do think that can be a useful tool, especially when working interdiction. Also I believe that it is funny the amount of paranoia that is running rampant. At no point did it say these were being used during "routine" traffic stops. Is it entirely possible the are being used in a criminal interdiction manner? Yes. If I was going out on a limb I'd say that's what they're being used for.

So in essence what you're saying is that just knowing drug dealers use phones in drug trafficking is PC to search a phone? That would be a serious stretch. When you have PC to conduct a Carroll search and find physical evidence (drugs) in the car, you detain the subject, sieze everything and then have plenty of time to get a warrant and search the phone. There's no longer an exigent circumstance because you control everything. While US. vs. Ross may say you have the same scope with a Carroll search as a warrant, you have to remember that most warrants are limited in scope. You can't get a warrant to search anything you feel like just because you're on a fishing expedition. You might find drugs in the body of a cell phone, but you're never going to find any in the memory of it. Once you find trafficking quantities of illegal drugs, you have your PC to request a warrant on the phone memory. Finding a joint in the center console is not PC to search a phone memory in my opinion.

Failure to automatically accept anything the .gov wants to do to citizens isn't paranoia, it's good citizenship. You just have to remember that the .gov is "of the people, by the people and for the people", not "of the police, by the police and for the police".