Court finds Fourth Amendment doesn’t support broad search of protesters’ devices

[fusslo]

> The warrants included a search through all of her photos, videos, emails, text messages, and location data over a two-month period, as well as a time-unlimited search for 26 keywords, including words as broad as “bike,” “assault,” “celebration,” and “right,” that allowed police to comb through years of Armendariz’s private and sensitive data—all supposedly to look for evidence related to the alleged simple assault.

That's an insane overreaction and overreach. There's some quotes from officers during the protests that are particularly troubling, too.

The article links directly to the ruling: https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/sites/ca10/files/opinions/0101...

I wonder how the Sargent and Judge who approved these searches feel. If they take their jobs seriously, I do hope that they are more critical of search warrant applications in the future.

[stronglikedan]

> I wonder how the Sargent and Judge who approved these searches feel. If they take their jobs seriously, I do hope that they are more critical of search warrant applications in the future.

I guarantee they feel like they've been slighted because they take their jobs seriously, and from their perspective they should have been allowed to do what they did. Power corrupts the mind as much as the bank account.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

With enough data, you could appear guilty of almost anything.

[radicaldreamer]

If you think judges actually read warrants they sign, you’re very mistaken. Some judges are signing dozens of these a day in between other things on their docket.

[UncleMeat]

> I wonder how the Sargent and Judge who approved these searches feel. If they take their jobs seriously, I do hope that they are more critical of search warrant applications in the future.

Cops often hate the people. They see the people as their enemies. Retaliation is commonplace. Their goal is to arrest people, not actually achieve peace and justice. DAs and judges are often similar. We've seen cases where highly respected DAs have continued to prosecute people they knew were innocent.

This sort of thing is not a case of particular cops or DAs or judges not taking their job seriously. This is cops or DAs or judges thinking that they have a totally different job than they really should have.

[bmitc]

> If they take their jobs seriously

There's about 0% that's true. Judges and even police are politicians now.

[ck2]

"constitution-free zone"

a phrase that should be impossible but due to wild corruption of the people who write law, it does

all of Florida, all of Maine are in a "ha what constitution" zone

https://www.aclumaine.org/know-your-rights/100-mile-border-z...

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/04/bill-rights-border-fou...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception

[shevy-java]

So, this is not surprising in that many courts have found a similar result. That is, the amendments usually protect the freedoms; sometimes regular folks extend it to far (e. g. government having zero possibilities which is also not true - see Audit the Audit channel and others). But one thing that is interesting is that these public departments, be it cops or some civil institution (but usually police departments), still try it. The idea is that many people will comply rather than dare resist. I think this is an institutionalized level of abuse. A common person should expect these government representatives to KNOW the law. The only reason these representatives still try to it to go to court, is because they WANT to break the law. This should become illegal. It wastes time, money, resources, by public representatives. The court system should change; the assumption that everyone is a legal body, SHOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE WHEN A GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVE KNOWS THAT SOMETHING IS AGAINST THE LAW and they still try to go for a court proceeding. That is deliberate abuse. Why do taxpayers have to pay for that?

[hn_acker]

The original title is:

> Victory! Tenth Circuit Finds Fourth Amendment Doesn’t Support Broad Search of Protesters’ Devices and Digital Data

[kevin_thibedeau]

This is in Colorado Springs. What about the 100 mile border zone where the federal government pretends all rights are suspended?

[SAI_Peregrinus]

Denver International Airport has a customs zone (as all international airports do), and is only 86 miles from Colorado Springs. AFAIK they've never explicitly restricted their policy to land & sea borders.

[antonvs]

The current government believes in some sort of transitive property of 100 mile border zones. Mathematics hasn't quite caught up with this yet.

[pklausler]

Having lived (or maybe more accurately "resided") in the Springs for a few years, this story didn't surprise me at all.

[mothballed]

It's an awesome victory. But until the penalty for violating rights under color of law is something real (like serious jail + restitution, barred from further public employment, etc) they will keep doing it.

[patrickmay]

A good start would be requiring police officers to carry individual liability insurance so that municipalities aren't paying for these lawsuits. If someone can't get insurance, they can no longer be a cop.

[jimt1234]

Yes, an awesome victory. But I believe a tech solution is gonna be superior to any legal solution. Any data considered "private and sensitive" should be accessible only by the person who owns it. Full stop.

[jandrese]

Is this going to be appealed up to the Supreme Court? They are usually pretty eager to expand the power of qualified immunity so this judgement may be short lived.

[nickff]

Interestingly (at least to me), the Tenth Circuit doesn't get appealed very often, and holds up fairly well on appeal, with a 50% reversal rate on appeals that are heard. https://reason.com/volokh/2024/07/02/which-circuit-had-the-h...

[stvltvs]

They probably won't because they don't want a nationwide precedent if it's upheld by SCOTUS.

[jmward01]

I think the top (tech) stories of the decade are likely: Privacy, AI and the energy transition.

I hope that as a society we are starting to learn, and protect, the value of, and right to, privacy.

[sneak]

Germans have mass surveillance and they are perhaps the most privacy-conscious society in the world, because of their (relatively recent) authoritarian catastrophe.

I doubt anyone else will learn the lesson without something similar happening. Even some Germans are forgetting it already.

[jfengel]

They may be the top stories, but they have never appeared on any list of voters' top concerns. It's always crime, jobs, the economy, inflation, and health care.

People can say whatever they want to journalists, but they say different things to the politicians. Standing up for privacy does not get you elected and so we will continue to get anti-privacy laws and Attorneys General who won't enforce what we do have.

The best you can hope for is a judge deciding how they want the Constitution to read, and that's far from the slam dunk you'd expect.

[runlevel1]

If faith in the fairness and belief in the protection of the rule of law collapses much further, I suspect people will learn.

The question is whether they'll learn in time to do anything about it.

[dmitrygr]

> I hope that as a society we are starting to learn, and protect, the value of, and right to, privacy.

I wish... but nope... see CA's and CO's requirements that OSs check ID

[JohnTHaller]

The Republican administration will ignore this court order as well

[stebalien]

The case was filed in 2023.

[RajT88]

Indeed. Who holds the government accountable to its own laws?

[delfinom]

Eh? They can, but it makes any cases based on evidence gathered from the declared unconstitutional searches basically dead and easily tossed in courts.

[nizbit]

That’s cool but I just have a feeling that the Supreme Court will be like hold my beer and poof 4th DOES support this.