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Supreme Court Misses Chance to Address Difficult Privacy Question

By Leonard Deutchman
September 02, 2014

In Riley v. California , No. 13-132, and United States v. Wurie , No. 13-212 (a PDF of the opinion for both cases is available at http://1.usa.gov/1l8Ccb9a), a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court held that the warrantless searches of the contents of cellphones seized from a person were not proper as searches incident to arrest and so, absent exigent circumstances particular to the matter, they were a violation of the Fourth Amendment. The opinion raises many issues, but I will focus on one: When technology changes the nature of what has been thought of as private, should the response be to continue to recognize that privacy, or to rethink what is private?

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