The California Supreme Court recently ruled that police have the right
to search the cell phones of anyone taken into custody. Citing U.S. law,
the California Supreme Court noted, “This loss of privacy allows police
not only to seize anything of importance they find on the arrestee’s
body… but also to open and examine what they find.” The ruling was
approved with a 5-2 vote. The dissenting justices said that the law
shouldn’t be extended to cover cell phones, which can carry extensive
amounts of personal and business information. A year ago, an Ohio court
reached the opposite conclusion, and said that police had violated the
rights of a man whose cell phone was searched during an arrest. With
opposing rulings made by different states, it could spur the U.S.
Supreme Court to take the matter into its own hands. Continue
