Warrantless Gadget Searching

If a police officer confiscates your mobile, is it legal?

This is the situation a judge in California is presiding over.

A man walked in to a store and bought 30 BlackBerry phones, something the clerk behind the counter found suspicious. The clerk called the police, and the man was arrested on identity fraud charges. His personal cell phone was seized.

In another case, a similar identity fraud situation, a suspect's mobile was confiscated and searched -- without a warrant.

Great police work, but is it legal?

What about cell phones where the device is password protected? Are police allowed to crack the password?

While there is legal precedent for wire taps and the like, do these laws and legal rabbit holes allow authorities to "tap" instant messengers like AIM, MSN, or Yahoo, or message boards, or video conferencing applications like Skype?

The answer most legal groupies would agree on is yes. If police can search your wallet, why shouldn't they be allowed to seize and search your cell phone?

Search Incident to Arrest

Adam Gershowitz, a criminal law professor in Houston, simplifies:

"Under this doctrine, police can search through any container found on the body of a person who has been arrested. It does not matter that the arrest was for running a stop sign, or speeding, or some other seemingly minor traffic infraction. Regardless of the reason for the arrest, police can search through every container on the person's body, even if the police have no suspicion that there is anything illegal in it."

Gershowitz continues, "The doctrine is designed to protect police from a suspect who could reach for a hidden weapon and to prevent suspects from concealing or destroying evidence. In the eyes of the law, electronic devices are nothing but containers subject to warrantless search."

Defenders of privacy are sounding a call-to-action to make the search of gadgets, like cell phones, different from ordinary containers. People's lives are generally stored on such devices, from bank account passwords, photos, subscriptions and, in some cases, medical information.

Despite the consensus in legal circles, the law is still blurry when it comes to "high technology items" -- if we can consider your cell phone high technology.