By Maria Cortes
Staff Writer
Lets play a game. Reach into your pocket and pull out your cell phone, iPhone, Blackberry whichever one you have. Now, hand it over to the first police officer you see and sit there quietly as he or she rifles through it. Watch as he or she looks through your personal photos, reads your text messages and e-mails. Just sit there with your hands neatly folded on your lap until they are satisfied that you aren’t a terrorist hell-bent on causing another tragedy.
Now, class, raise your hands if you would be perfectly fine with this. I thought so. But you see, we don’t have a choice in the matter anymore. California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed SB 914, a bill that stated that police needed a warrant if they wanted to search the cell phone of someone that had been placed under arrest.
Okay, so it’s not like they’re just going to randomly pick you up off the street and start searching your smart phone. But, lets say you’re arrested for shoplifting, disturbing the peace or something else horribly meaningless. What then? I’ll tell you. Hand over that device and pray that you haven’t been speaking to all the Al Qaeda friends that you obviously have.
They say that Brown gave in to all the law enforcement special interest groups that had been pressuring him to veto the act. Apparently, they don’t see this as invasion of privacy or a bullet to our freedom of speech rights. They just want to protect us from the big bad monsters living inside our cell phones. We should be thanking them. You’re off my Christmas list Jerry Brown, you’re off.
