Phones

There are times when paying attention to cases such as this do little more than encourage avoiding cases like this. The government, in some form, is advocating a tiny exception, the most minor exclusion, on what can be searched or read through or checked over. Sometimes it's upon arrest, other times it has been been earlier than that. It can seem like the usual response is "of course the government may do this."

And then something like this unanimous verdict shows up, from what is often considered a conservative court with conservatives majorities, to say "No, actually, that's a very serious and complete archive of personal data there, not too different from 'papers and persons,' and you may not search it any more than you can search through someone's rolodex or any other items that might be easily found in their living rooms."

It wasn't that long ago that such assertions would have been considered an expansion of the power of courts, and that they were playing games with peoples lives - because if you couldn't arrest and try and convict these people who were clearly criminals, then good Americans were going to get hurt.  This time around, those commies at the Wall Street Journal are glad to be on the side of the Fourth Amendment.

It seems as if it's different, somehow, that many people support this even though in theory it will make them less safe. It could be that this is a ubiquitous device, so everyone understands what could be accessed by the government if their phone was the one being searched. It could also be that the Fourth is heading towards the peak, and a larger proportion of people are recognizing that Something Must Be Done - probably about The Government, which is acting as if it knows better than the rest of us what It Should Be Allowed to Do.