Brown vetoes bill to limit cell phone searches
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
San Francisco Chronicle October 10, 2011 01:53 PM
Copyright San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. ![]()
(10-10) 13:53 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Frustrated by Gov. Jerry Brown's veto, a Bay Area lawmaker says it will be at least another year before he can try again to require police to get a search warrant before looking at the contents of cell phones they seize from people they arrest.
Legislative rules prohibit reintroducing the bill in 2012, the second year of the current two-year session, Sen.
Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, said Monday. Despite rebuffs from the governor and the courts, he said, the issue isn't going away.
Leno's SB914 would have largely overturned a state Supreme Court ruling in January that let police open and examine the cell phones of people they arrest without a warrant.
The court majority in the 5-2 decision said people who are taken into custody lose their privacy rights over any items they're carrying. The court cited U.S. Supreme Court rulings from the 1970s upholding searches of cigarette packages and clothing that officers seized during an arrest and examined later without a warrant.
The dissenting justices said modern cell phones can store huge amounts of personal data, and argued that police shouldn't be allowed to rummage through them without first persuading a judge that they're likely to contain evidence of wrongdoing. Leno agreed.
SB914 drew support from civil liberties groups and news media organizations, concerned about police access to confidential files of reporters who are swept up in an arrest. A 1978 U.S. Supreme Court ruling requires officers to get a warrant to search media records.
Law enforcement groups and prosecutors opposed the bill, arguing that cell phones may contain information about crimes that can be erased before police have a chance to get a warrant.
Leno mollified legislative opponents of his bill with an amendment specifying that police could conduct emergency searches without a warrant to prevent injury or destruction of evidence.
"The courts are better suited to resolve the complex and case-specific issues relating to constitutional search-and-seizures protections," the Democratic governor said in his veto message.
Leno called Brown's statement illogical, noting that the courts are through with the case: The U.S. Supreme Court denied review of the California decision last week, after previously rejecting an appeal from an Ohio Supreme Court ruling that required a warrant to search a cell phone.
"The Legislature and the executive branch have got every right to revisit a decision by the court," Leno said.
"We make the laws, they interpret."
Legislative rules prohibit reintroducing the bill in 2012, the second year of the current two-year session, Sen.
Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, said Monday. Despite rebuffs from the governor and the courts, he said, the issue isn't going away.
Leno's SB914 would have largely overturned a state Supreme Court ruling in January that let police open and examine the cell phones of people they arrest without a warrant.
The court majority in the 5-2 decision said people who are taken into custody lose their privacy rights over any items they're carrying. The court cited U.S. Supreme Court rulings from the 1970s upholding searches of cigarette packages and clothing that officers seized during an arrest and examined later without a warrant.
The dissenting justices said modern cell phones can store huge amounts of personal data, and argued that police shouldn't be allowed to rummage through them without first persuading a judge that they're likely to contain evidence of wrongdoing. Leno agreed.
SB914 drew support from civil liberties groups and news media organizations, concerned about police access to confidential files of reporters who are swept up in an arrest. A 1978 U.S. Supreme Court ruling requires officers to get a warrant to search media records.
Law enforcement groups and prosecutors opposed the bill, arguing that cell phones may contain information about crimes that can be erased before police have a chance to get a warrant.
Leno mollified legislative opponents of his bill with an amendment specifying that police could conduct emergency searches without a warrant to prevent injury or destruction of evidence.
"The courts are better suited to resolve the complex and case-specific issues relating to constitutional search-and-seizures protections," the Democratic governor said in his veto message.
Leno called Brown's statement illogical, noting that the courts are through with the case: The U.S. Supreme Court denied review of the California decision last week, after previously rejecting an appeal from an Ohio Supreme Court ruling that required a warrant to search a cell phone.
"The Legislature and the executive branch have got every right to revisit a decision by the court," Leno said.
"We make the laws, they interpret."
No comments:
Post a Comment