Some courts seem to have adopted an extremely pro-prosecution attitude about what it means to voluntarily “abandon” fingerprints or DNA samples. FourthAmendment.com reports on a California case, People v. Thomas, where a defendant stopped for a DUI consented to a breathalyzer test. Because he did not wipe his saliva off the mouthpiece before handing it back…
Category: U.S.
Questioning Privacy Protections in Research
Patricia Cohen reports: Hoping to protect privacy in an age when a fingernail clipping can reveal a person’s identity, federal officials are planning to overhaul the rules that regulate research involving human subjects. But critics outside the biomedical arena warn that the proposed revisions may unintentionally create a more serious problem: sealing off vast collections…
Pointer: Cell Phone Data and Expectations of Privacy
FourthAmendment.com points us to an article by Peter A. Crusco in the New York Law Journal that provides a nice synopsis of Supreme Court and other cases on cell phone data – including location information – and the Fourth Amendment. You can read it on Law.com.
Have you signed the “Not Without a Warrant!” petition?
The government’s power to read your email, access your private photos stored online and track your daily movements is defined in a 1986 law, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The privacy protections of ECPA have not been updated since 1986. They say that the government can access your communications and surveil you without getting a warrant from…