ACLU files suit to stop warrantless mobile phone searches

The ACLU of Northern California today filed suit against San Francisco and its Police Chief Gregory Suhr on behalf of civil rights activist Bob Offer-Westort, "whose cell phone was searched by the San Francisco Police Department without a warrant after he was arrested while engaging in peaceful civil disobedience."

The suit charges that warrantless cell phone searches at the time of arrest violate the constitutional rights not only of arrestees but also of their family, friends, co-workers, and anyone whose information is in their phones. This practice violates the right to privacy, and the right to speak freely without police listening in to what we say and who we talk to.

Here's the lawsuit document (PDF). It's interesting reading.

Offer-Westort advocates for the rights of homeless people. There's a video about his work here.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

More at Boing Boing

Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy

The Snowden Principle

Cowicide

Another great reminder to donate to the ACLU…

https://www.aclu.org/secure/make-gift-aclu?s_src=UNS130001C00
- imag
  
  And heck, if you need a lawyer, support Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP. According to the article, they are doing this pro bono. Wish there were more lawyers like that.
endrest

And I can see from the dearth of comments that too few seem to not care about this, fundamentally, human-rights issue. Yes, I believe unwarranted search and seizure is something that no human should be subjected to… especially in the USA..especially in ‘Free Speech’ zones –which should infuriate any American who feels that the Constitution has been slowly dismantled in the last 80 years to only benefit the wealthy. Then again, I also believe income tax is a tax on the living and never should have been instituted.
- ohbejoyful
  
  comment dearth =/= non-caring
- imag
  
  I am simultaneously infuriated, grateful to the the many folks who are bringing this suit, and commenting. Hope that helps!
  
  P.S. – Should we tax the dead instead?
- Cowicide
  
  I care!
pjcamp

I was watching an old Frontline tonight called The Confessions.

Worth watching every time someone wants you to trust the cops.
http://twitter.com/MBridegam Martha Bridegam

Glad that Bob’s phone case is getting some attention. Sad that less attention was paid to the January 2012 protest that started his trouble. It was a gutsy one-man statement against a proposed ordinance targeting homeless people. The ordinance would have pretty much made it illegal to spend time in certain public plazas while visibly homeless. See http://blog.sfgate.com/cityinsider/2012/01/23/proposed-castro-plaza-regulations-clear-first-hurdle/ The right of visibly poor people to use public space is also a civil rights issue, but a less popular one than data privacy. The plaza ordinance, btw, did pass, but in less howlingly discriminatory form than originally proposed. Likely Bob’s activism should get some of the credit for that. See strikeouts showing rejection of initially proposed overwrought language at http://www.sfbos.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/bdsupvrs/ordinances12/o0022-12.pdf via http://www.sfbos.org/index.aspx?page=12653 There’s some especially weird crud in there about “wheeled conveyances” that seems to have been directed against shopping carts.