Cell phone search warrant ruled overbroad

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by: Ryan • February 23, 2015 • no comments

A federal court has thrown out a search warrant that purported to authorize the search of a phone. Per computer law expert Orin Kerr,

Judge Rosenstengel, a relatively new Obama appointee, suppressed the child pornography on Fourth Amendment grounds. According to Judge Rosenstengel, the warrant was defective for two basic reasons. First, the warrant did not limit the search by data type. The warrant asked for all evidence on the phone that was evidence of public indecency, but there was only reason to think that the evidence would be in the specific form of pictures or videos[.]

In my opinion, there probably isn't a cell phone search warrant that isn't at least potentially susceptible to this type of challenge. The facts will matter of course, as well as the scope of the warrant, but if you've got a cell phone search warrant, you should probably assume it's flawed until convinced otherwise.