njlauren
Posts: 1577
Joined: 10/1/2011
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There are large questions here, and the guilt or innocence of the victims is not relevant to the tactics used. As others have pointed out, in both these cases it comes down to a matter of probable cause. Simply stopping someone is problematic, the stop and frisk tactics cops used in NYC, for example, are problematic, because they can't seem to give a credible reason why they stop people, except that they generally are young black or hispanic men in bad areas....
In example 1, they don't say why they pulled the guy over in the first place, but once they found a suspended license they had probable cause to search the car, and once they did that and found guns, they had cause to search any kind of evidence on the guy, including his phone, major probable cause. The blurb above doesn't say, but if they stopped him for a legitimate reason in the first place, then the chain of evidence is secured by probable cause.
In example 2, he was busted for selling crack cocaine (probably a buy and bust), and once that happens, they have the right to search everything on the guy, including his phone. They didn't go up to him on the street and grab the phone and start looking at it, it was on a person committing a crime and a phone can give evidence of what the guy is up to, so it is perfectly legal.
If they simply rousted someone on the street, or pulled over a kid for driving while black, it would be illegal, because probable cause is not there.
I am surprised SCOTUS took either of these cases, to be honest, #2 especially seems pretty cut and dried, they had the guy on a felony, and as a result they had reason to search his home (they could have easily gotten a warrant, given he had been arrested).
I am a lot more concerned about the wireless wiretaps they gave the government under the patriot act or the NSA data mining being used wrongly. Under the Patriot act, evidence taken on those wireless wiretaps that doesn't involve terrorism is not supposed to be given over to anyone, yet the Bush administration tried arguing that if they found evidence of non terrorist criminal activity, they should be allowed to notify law authorities. That is scary, because that is de facto allowing them to tap into phone and mobil calls , supposedly searching for terrorism, it is basically warrantless searches that are forbidden. Likewise, to give equal time, under the Obama administration there has been pressure that the NSA share its data mining results with law enforcement, arguing that their profiling can turn up valuable information on criminal activity, to give law enforcement an edge.......both are wrong, because that would be like cops being given search warrants by a judge to search every house in a town, top to bottom, to find evidence of criminal activity, with no evidence at all of any criminal activity going on, it would be a fishing expedition, something law and order conservatives want (I just love "well, if you have nothing to hide, why be upset?"), we yelled and scream about the nazis and the soviets, but that is exactly what they did.....
These two cases? Sounds to me like they had probable cause, both people had committed crimes (albeit of quite different levels, suspended license is not a felony, selling crack is) so any right to privacy there disappears if cops are searching for further potential crimes.
Sure, cops abuse this, the stop and frisk I mentioned can be abused, a cop can pull someone over and smash their tail light and say "that is why I pulled you over", but probable cause is a fundamental part of our laws, for very good reasons.
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