Re:Feds Walk into a Building and Demand Everyone's Fingerpri...
by russell_h on Monday October 17, 2016 @02:09AM
(#12722971)
Couldn't you say the same about a safe on the premises being searched?
The self-incrimination clause of the fifth amendment is broadly interpreted as intended to dissuade the government from attempting to coerce confessions. Forcing someone to unlock their phone with a fingerprint caries none of the moral hazard of forcing them to testify.
All of that being said, I'd love for US society to recognize that a search encompassing a bunch of people's phones is vastly more intrusive (by virtue of the volume of data collected and network effects) than a search of a building that excludes computing devices, and for us to require a correspondingly higher burden of proof.
The self-incrimination clause of the fifth amendment is broadly interpreted as intended to dissuade the government from attempting to coerce confessions. Forcing someone to unlock their phone with a fingerprint caries none of the moral hazard of forcing them to testify.
All of that being said, I'd love for US society to recognize that a search encompassing a bunch of people's phones is vastly more intrusive (by virtue of the volume of data collected and network effects) than a search of a building that excludes computing devices, and for us to require a correspondingly higher burden of proof.