Texas-Book-Gun Law Armed And Educated - Flipbook - Page 65
device on a vehicle is a Fourth Amendment search requiring a
warrant. However, the Court has not yet issued any guidelines as
to what conditions are required for the issuance of a warrant for
GPS tracking.
C. Smartphones
In today’s day and age, you might be hard-pressed to find someone
who does not carry a smartphone on their person at all times. Most
of these tiny, portable computers are overflowing with personal
information such as texts, personal contacts, schedules, emails, and
photos. What happens when police find a smartphone, say in an
inventory search like the one above? How has Fourth Amendment
jurisprudence kept up with this technological development? In
2014, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down Riley v. California,
573 U.S. 373 (2014), which directly addresses this issue. In Riley,
the Court distinguished cell phones from other objects found on an
individual by stating:
Cell phones differ in both a quantitative and a qualitative sense
from other objects that might be kept on an arrestee’s person.
The term “cell phone” is itself misleading shorthand; many of
these devices are in fact minicomputers that also happen to
have the capacity to be used as a telephone. They could just
as easily be called cameras, video players, rolodexes, calendars,
tape recorders, libraries, diaries, albums, televisions, maps, or
newspapers. One of the most notable distinguishing features of
modern cell phones is their immense storage capacity. Before cell
phones, a search of a person was limited by physical realities and
tended as a general matter to constitute only a narrow intrusion
on privacy.
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