Cop pulls you over, asks for your license, registration, insurance card and cellphone.
Cell phone? Yes.
Why? Because you might be the head of a drug cartel and surely you keep your spreadsheets in Google Drive, your client list in your contacts file, your medical records in Evernote, half a dozen kiddy porn sites on your browser and the numbers of your bank accounts in the Cayman Islands, Costa Rica and Switzerland in a cloud file marked “shopping list.”
So let’s have that iPhone pal.
Well, not anymore.
The US Supreme Court ruled that cops need a warrant to look at a mobile phone.
Eight of the nine agreed completely. The ninth, Alito, said “yes-but.” The but: courts shouldn’t decide this kind of thing, legislatures should, says he.
That’s not an encouraging sign. Too many rat traps and rats’ nests in state capitals. This is a national situation and the law must be consistent from Portland east to Portland west and Tallahassee to Juneau.
In the United States Dictatorship of the Corprotariat™ we can’t wait for the boneheads in each state to figure out what privacy within their phony borders means.
Alioops is wrong. Nothing rare about that. What’s rare is the rest of the bunch agrees on what’s right.
Media are calling the decision unanimous. More accurately, it’s 8.5-0.5.
It’s the middle of the night and you blow a traffic light in Valdosta, Georgia or Deerlodge, Montana. Before the cop walks over to ask for your license and such turn off your ringer and put the phone in the glove box.
But, you say, it’s illegal for the cop to look at it.
That doesn’t mean they won’t try. But if they can’t see it, maybe they won’t think about it. Especially if your name isn’t Clarence Thomas and the potential charge isn’t driving while black or John Roberts and driving while faint.
It’s truly amazing that these zanies can agree on anything, let alone something really important like every detail about your life. Let alone unanimously.
Savor it while you can. This could be a once in a lifetime experience. And these days, many of us live pretty long.
Shrapnel:
--Not all the rulings were so glorious as the supes continue to erode abortion rights by striking down the 35 foot no- protest zone at a Boston clinic. Infringes on the rights of the protesters, rules the court (9-0.) What about the rights of the women?
--The President is planning a five billion dollar anti-terrorism operation in the middle east, with half a billion going to what the administration calls “appropriately vetted” Syrian rebels. Any idea how many units of public housing or how many medical insurance policies could be supplied for that kind of money. We should apply for foreign aid for ourselves.
Grapeshot:
-This post has the first findable reference to the phrase Dictatorship of the Corprotariat.”
-Because this is Wessay #1350, we salute radio station WWWL, 1350, New Orleans which although mostly syndicated sports does a local cooking show weekdays from noon until 3, which takes guts, not to mention recipes.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2014
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