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Cell Phones And Its Effects On Our Lives

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There is no doubt that cell phones, in this day and age, are a huge part of most American’s everyday life. Cell phones that hold an abundance of various personal information and keepsakes such as pictures, videos, messages, etc. With the extensive amount of information that these mobile devices hold, they may sometimes be helpful to reveal and trace criminal activity. The access to the evidence of criminal activity can be very valuable to police but this access generally requires a warrant. The clear difference between cell phones and regular physical items that are subject to search and seizure in an arrest does not allow the usual “search incident to arrest” doctrine to be enforced with mobile devices (“Riley V. California”). The Riley V. California case concerns David Riley of San Diego, who petitioned his 4th amendment rights were infringed after an unreasonable search and seizure of incriminating information from his cell phone took place. Riley was stopped in 2009 by a law enforcement officer for out of date license tags. At the time of the event the officer took possession of Riley’s Samsung Instinct M800, which held information used to charge Riley with participating in criminal activity before this event (Fuchs). When Riley was stopped the officer also found concealed weapons which he was charged for (“Riley V. California”). The search of Riley’s cell phone at the time of the arrest, by the officer, revealed the use of what he supposed was an abbreviation to mean

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