Comment by sweeper33 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sweeper33 | Hacker News Reader

I think this is a dangerous road to go down. Even though I feel that Safety on the roads is paramount and that there are way too many people that talk or text while on their phones, I think this becomes an invasion of privacy unless the police officer has reasonable cause to go through your phone (i.e. saw you on your phone or texting). Also, cell phones are only a drop in the bucket. I've seen and had my passengers take pictures of people in their cars putting on make up or even reading! It's insane what all is out there. So what's next, cops will check women's purses for makeup usage? Books in the car for freshly turned pages?

I know i'm being dramatic here, but the point is, there has to be a line somewhere. I do want the roads to be safer and I want drivers to be less distracted (texting while driving is actually more dangerous than driving drunk according to a study http://www.cnbc.com/id/31545004/Texting_And_Driving_Worse_Th...), but I also don't want some random police officer rifling through my private text messages, e-mails and voicemails for the purposes of seeing if I should get another ticket.

Additionally, I often make short trips for lunch (.1 miles or less). If a police officer does go through my phone, how is he to know I didn't send that text just as I got in my car before I left Wendy's to return to the office? He doesn't, no one does. That's the problem with this and why I feel it is too much of an invasion.

> Even though I feel that Safety on the roads is paramount and that there are way too many people that talk or text while on their phones

This law isn't about keeping people safer, whether you were on your phone or not the officer has the right to search it (apparently). I imagine the motivations for this law is the same straw men they always are: drug dealers, illegal activity, child pornography, etc. etc.

> I also don't want some random police officer rifling through my private text messages, e-mails and voicemails for the purposes of seeing if I should get another ticket.

I don't even think it is that clear cut; if the officer pulled you over, he already has a reason to ticket you. Looking through your phone isn't going to make that better/worse unless you are involved in illicit activity and they find evidence of that on your phone. Then worse :)

> Additionally, I often make short trips for lunch (.1 miles or less). If a police officer does go through my phone, how is he to know I didn't send that text just as I got in my car before I left Wendy's to return to the office?

You don't need to worry about this (not what the law is for).

> You don't need to worry about this (not what the law is for).

The law's purpose when written does not preclude all the clever uses they find for it afterward.

Absolutely right, I should have clarified that I was speaking from a "first-cut" perspective.

Out of the gate, say tomorrow, when this law starts getting leveraged against folks I was saying that getting your phone searched specifically because you were talking or texting on it and an officer caught you were likely two different things (there are already "don't use while driving" laws in CA I think).

But like you said, weeks-months-years down the road, there could be some very creative (read: awful) applications of this; just like we saw with wire taping and the "national security" catch all after 9/11.

From what I can tell, there's nothing remotely "clever" at play here. The search context we're talking about is many decades old. The arrest that instigated it was not subtle; any of (i) reckless driving, (ii) driving without a license, or (iii) DUI can get you searched "for reals". In a "for reals" search, your phone is not off limits, never has been, full stop.

If you want to force the situation into a grey area, use a strongly encrypted passphrase protected phone, like an iPhone. You'll have a lot more room to maneuver in the case where someone tries to compel you to divulge your passphrase. That's not what happened here.

A traffic ticket is not an arrest. The police cannot without consent search you, your car, your jacket, your bag, or anything else simply because you were caught speeding. You have to be arrested for that to happen.

The pattern of facts here is, if you get pulled offer, arrested for DUI and driving without a license (both of which are arrestable offenses), and the cop finds a loaded gun in your car, you cannot claim that your "expectation of privacy" protects the contents of the phone with your picture on it sitting in clear view in the passenger compartment.

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