Yesterday’s ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States, requiring the police to get a warrant before accessing a suspect’s mobile phone data, was remarkable in many ways. It demonstrated two things in particular that fit within a recent pattern around the world, one which may have quite a lot to do with the revelations of Edward Snowden. The first is that the judiciary shows a willingness and strength to support privacy rights in the face of powerful forces, the second is an increasing understanding of the way that privacy, in these technologically dominated days, is not the simple thing that it was in the past.
The stand-out phrase in the ruling is remarkable in its clarity:
13-132 Riley v. California (06/25/2014)
“Modern cell phones are not just another technological convenience. With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans “the privacies of life,”…
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The ramblings of a former DWP Civil Servant ... 