David House was working as a computer programmer at the time of the 2010 incident, and although government investigators had questioned him about his efforts to raise funds for the defense of Manning, no one had requested a warrant to search his computer. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement subsequently issued what is known as a TECS lookout; House was flagged in the computer system as “wanted for questioning re leak of classified materials” and border agents were ordered to “secure digital media” if he appeared at an inspection point. When House returned from vacation in Mexico, law enforcement confiscated his laptop, camera, cell phone and thumb drive.

“Americans crossing the border are being searched and their digital media is being seized in the hopes that the government will find something to have them convicted,” Mr. House said. “I think it’s important for business travelers and people who consider themselves politically inclined to know what dangers they now face in a country where they have no real guarantee of privacy at the border.”

According to the terms of the settlement, the government has agreed to destroy all copies of the data they took from Mr. House’s devices – which contained no evidence of a crime, according to settlement documents – and he will be removed from the travel alert list and will no longer be detained when he returns to the United States from traveling abroad.

The law remains unclear regarding limits on intrusive border inspections, including the length of time a traveler may be detained and whether they are required to provide passwords or answer other questions.

It has been accepted practice for some time for law enforcement to obtain DNA samples from individuals who have been convicted of a crime. The ruling on the Maryland case, however, opens the door for such samples to be taken before an individual has even been charged with a crime. In the lower court decision, the Maryland Court of Appeals felt this would be an invasion of personal privacy.

The Supreme Court, in a majority opinion written by Justice Kennedy, held that the state’s interest in learning the full identity of the person under arrest outweighs his right to privacy, and that the swabbing of a cheek to obtain a DNA sample is a minimal intrusion, similar to a finger print. The majority decision goes on to say that “once an individual has been arrested on probable cause for a dangerous offense that may require detention before trial, his or her expectations of privacy and freedom from police scrutiny are reduced.”

Justice Scalia was joined in his dissent by Justices Bader Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan, and opined in his written decision that the DNA sampling procedure was not intended to identify an individual, but rather to collect evidence of a prior crime having nothing to do with the offense for which the individual had been detained. In closing, Scalia stated: “I doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection.”

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals has issued new search and seizure guidelines for police officers conducting a warrantless search of vehicles after making a lawful arrest.

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The court has rejected an argument that there are some crimes where warrantless searches are always justified; it asserted instead that a search conducted without a warrant is not an assumed privilege for law enforcement, but rather a narrow exception.

In Arizona v. Gant, the US Supreme Court has held that automobile searches should be limited to those instances in which “the arrestee is unsecured and within reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time of the search.” In other words, law enforcement may only engage in a warrantless search of the vehicle in order to safeguard evidence that an arrestee might conceal or destroy. The Court of Appeals has likewise concluded that officers “must have reasonable, articulable suspicion’ in order to carry out such a search, such as the smell of alcohol in the car or a visible container or cup with liquid in it.

The US Attorney has declined to comment, but the defendant’s attorney, Washington solo practitioner Jonathan Daily, said by phone that the decision was “an amazing affirmation of the trial court.” He feels that the decision will “resonate through all fifty states as to the protection of the Fourth Amendment.” We will be watching closely to see if and how this ruling affects search and seizure laws across the country

In a landmark ruling regarding privacy rights and search and seizure, the Supreme Court of the United States has suggested that law enforcement get a warrant before physically attaching GPS monitoring devices to a suspect’s vehicle. While the ruling was unanimous that police had violated the suspect’s Constitutional rights, the rationale for that decision divided the Justices.

https://www.mdavidlindsey.com/Drug-Crimes/Drug-Search-and-Seizure-Law.shtml

The majority opinion held that the placement of the device on private property constituted the violation, thereby avoiding the more profound questions raised by the development of new technologies that our Founding Fathers couldn’t have foreseen.

“We hold that the government’s installation of a G.P.S. device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a ‘search,’ ” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor joined the majority opinion.

“It is important to be clear about what occurred in this case,” Justice Scalia went on. “The government physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information. We have no doubt that such a physical intrusion would have been considered a ‘search’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when it was adopted.”

Justice Samuel Alito, writing in a concurrence for Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Elena Kagan, took exception with the majority’s attempts to apply 18th century legal concepts to 21st century technologies.

“The use of longer term G.P.S. monitoring in investigations of most offenses impinges on expectations of privacy. We need not identify with precision the point at which the tracking of this vehicle became a search, for the line was surely crossed before the 4-week mark,” Justice Alito wrote. “Other cases may present more difficult questions.”

Justice Sotomayor, who joined the majority opinion, indicates that she would have joined Alito’s instead had he addressed more than the private property issue raised in this case. Her opinion hints at the broader questions of privacy and search and seizure that the court will likely face in the future. “It may be necessary to reconsider the premise that an individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in information voluntarily disclosed to third parties. People disclose the phone numbers that they dial or text to their cellular providers; the URLs that they visit and the e-mail addresses with which they correspond to their Internet service providers; and the books, groceries, and medications they purchase to online retailers,” she wrote. “I for one doubt that people would accept without complaint the warrantless disclosure to the government of a list of every Web site they had visited in the last week, or month, or year.”

Have advances in technology led to potential invasions of privacy by law enforcement? This question will be taken up by the nation’s highest court this term, in the case United States v Jones, where a GPS tracking device placed on a suspect’s car without a warrant.

The court has long maintained that people should have no expectation of privacy while in public; police surveillance is an accepted manner by which law enforcement collects evidence. Does the placement of a tracking device on a vehicle cross the line? The Jones case will address not only whether the placement of the GPS device on the outside of the vehicle without a warrant qualifies as a “search”, but also whether such intensive monitoring is by definition more intrusive than conventional surveillance.

“The Jones case requires the Supreme Court to decide whether modern technology has turned law enforcement into Big Brother, able to monitor and record every move we make outside our homes,” said Susan Freiwald, a law professor at the University of San Francisco.

Courts have not required law enforcement to obtain warrants in order to put a “tail” on a suspect, or to perform a “stakeout”. The court must decide if the use of GPS technology is a simply a way to do this kind of surveillance more cheaply, or if as the lower court unanimously ruled that the government was trying to obtain too much information.

For more information on search and seizure law see my website at: https://www.mdavidlindsey.com/Drug-Crimes/Drug-Search-and-Seizure-Law.shtml