Re: Without a warrant...

Without a warrant... (Score: 2, Insightful)

by kerrany@pipedot.org on 2014-09-30 19:39 (#2T16)

Keep in mind too that the Supreme Court decision noted above isn't much of a barrier to a curious cop. Getting a warrant means filling out an extra bit of paperwork and waking a judge up - the decision might be counted as a victory, but it isn't much of a victory. Judges tend to rubber-stamp warrants. Heck, waking a judge up at night is more likely to get a cop a rubber-stamped warrant approval - they assume the cop did it for a damn good reason.

This decision by the major smartphone OS makers is pretty much the only thing standing between normal people and police business as usual, not to mention all the malicious apps, stalking ex-spouses, and curious roommates in the world. Besides, those lovely orders compelling people to give out their passwords have to get some use, right? (Yep, the US does that, albeit not as brazenly as the UK.) This is not a settled area of US law, despite our 5th Amendment. Things are going to get interesting in the next few years. In the meantime, score one for the good guys.

Re: Without a warrant... (Score: 3, Insightful)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2014-09-30 23:45 (#2T18)

Getting a warrant isn't a huge hurdle, but it's a slow, manual step, which prevents the kind of indiscriminate large-scale slurping of all the data on the phones of anyone they stop for any reason... Cops aren't going to wake-up a judge to get a warrant for every traffic stop, so the ruling substantially raises the bar compared to the completely unrestricted status quo.