Oregon Supreme Court Sets Up New Limits For Digital Device Searches

Oregon Supreme Court Sets Up New Limits For Digital Device Searches

5 years ago
Anonymous $hM_jrxqbr-

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180707/20482740193/oregon-supreme-court-sets-up-new-limits-digital-device-searches.shtml

Searching digital things isn't like searching physical things. But a majority of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence relies on making inapt comparisons between houses/papers and devices capable of holding several housefuls of papers, communications, photos, etc.

Guidelines for digital searches are an inexact science. Given the nature of these searches, there's clearly room for abuse. It's almost inevitable. Access must be granted to an entire device (computer, phone, hard drive) to find what's sought as evidence. Files aren't named incriminating.docx so files must be opened to determine their contents. In almost all digital searches, law enforcement gets the haystack and then goes looking for needles.