Judge says it's OK to use your seized phone to impersonate you and entrap your friendsBy Cory DoctorowBoing Boing Jul. 22, 2012 |
Sen. Hawley: Send National Guard to Crush Pro-Palestine Protests Like 'Eisenhower Sent the 101st to Little Rock'
AP: 'Israeli Strikes on Gaza City of Rafah Kill 22, Mostly Children, as U.S. Advances Aid Package'
Mistrial Declared in Case of Arizona Rancher Accused of Killing Migrant Trespasser
John Podhoretz Demands National Guard Be Sent Into Columbia U to Put Down Pro-Palestine Protests
House Passes $95B Foreign Aid Giveaway to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, Combined With TikTok Ban
A federal judge has upheld the practice of police using seized phones to impersonate their owners, reading messages and sending sending entrapping replies to contacts in the phone's memory, without a warrant. The judge reasoned that constitutional privacy rights don't apply to messages if they appear on a seized device -- even if the messages originated with someone who has not been arrested or is under suspicion of any crime: A federal appeals court held that the pager owner's Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure were not violated because the pager is "nothing more than a contemporary receptacle for telephone numbers," akin to an address book. The court also held that someone who sends his phone number to a pager has no reasonable expectation of privacy because he can't be sure that the pager will be in the hands of its owner.It's legal: cops seize cell phone, impersonate owner |