According to this Forbes article, Feds entered a property with
In other words, without naming a specific person or a specific piece of information being sought after, they were authorized to force anyone and/or everyone that happened to be on that property at that time to unlock their cellphones and hand them over.
If this is legal, it is legally obscene in my opinion.
Yes, it is way too broad. It’s also disgusting that a judge would issue it in the first place.
I think that very last clause -
“and falls within the scope of the warrant.”
serves as a limiter - do you have the ‘scope of the warrant’ handy?
I think a lot of search warrants are too broad. Protip: if you’re trying to keep your illegal electronic bits hidden from the prying eyes of the police, don’t use a fingerprint scanner as a convenient way to unlock your device. Also, maybe consider not using an iPhone, since the FBI can apparently crack them.
If the warrant doesn’t particularly describe the thing being searched for, it isn’t a valid warrant. What were they looking for? Was it some piece of information on the electronic devices, or who were the people in the house who had fingerprint access to the devices, or what?
That is, were they trying to find out who had access, or were they looking for something and hoped to be able to compel anyone in the house to help them find it?
Regards,
Shodan
Somewhat related - when I used to write and execute search warrants for drugs there was standard language that said " and all persons present at the time of execution". This allowed us to search everyone in the house. Then, supposedly, a UPS (or similar) guy got caught up in the execution of a warrant somewhere. The cops searched him and found some weed or something but he was completely unrelated to the case. It was just a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He moved to suppress the evidence and won. (Sorry, no cite for the case - I’d love to read it if it exists) The language in the warrant was then changed to " “All persons present reasonably believed to be involved in the crime of (fill in the blank)”. Even that seems kind of odd since probable cause is required to search, not a reasonable belief. I think the justices were trying to keep things practical while at the same time providing some protection to innocent bystanders.
Ybarra v. Illinois was the Supreme Court case that rejected the search of anyone present when a search warrant is executed.
I’m wondering, could a search warrant require someone on-site to open a combination safe, or to show the police which key opened a locked door? Those seem roughly equivalent to me.
In both those cases, the police are requiring the contents of someone’s mind. That’s “more testimonial” than the press of a finger.
In that case, can a search warrant dictate a person to move their body in a certain manner-to perform certain physical actions? I know that it allows the police to search, and it restricts outsiders from impeding such searches…but this requires a person to take a physical action beyond getting out of the way.
A search warrant can authorize blood draws or cheek swabs. So I’d say the mere press of a finger is permissible.
But that assumes the police are past Ybarra.
Thanks, Bricker. Now I’ll have to go see how close what I heard matches the actual facts.