Handing over a Cell phone to LE ?

Yep just like driving a POV at 230 in the AM and you get pulled over for doing nothing wrong. The cop is just wanting to see if you left the bar at 2 and see if your drunk. Not really probable cause if you did nothing wrong.

 

Yea, probable cause in a routine traffic stop is a laugh. I've been pulled over before for "tail light out" yet when I walked to the back of the truck with the officer, the lights were fine. All that got was a "well you may have a short, check it out".

An officer who WANTS to pull you over can come up with 100 reasons in no time to make it probable cause. Take it to court? Sure it's your word vs his/hers as to whether or not he was lying for pulling you over.

 

If you use bluetooth you can put your phone in your bag on the bunk.
you can still answer/ make calls and with the phone in back. when pulled over and asked the officer will know there is no way you could have been texting. issue solved.

 

Capital, the law on cell phone searches has nothing to do with texting. If that is all people are worried about most average users can clear their history in less than 30 seconds.

 

Unless someone sets-up the bluetooth to allow this, and you have to work at it, this is not something that can just be done like people grabbing an unsecured wifi. Plus range is limited. And, few phones allow for multiple bluetooth connections at the same time. So if you have a headset paired then it won't pair with anything else. And if you don't use a headset then it is not likely that you even have it turned on.

 

Being able to search a vehicle without a warranty was established LONG before the patriot act. If often takes the courts a little while to catch-up with technology.

Suspicion of a criminal act is all that is needed to search a personal vehicle. How this is interpreted varies wildly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

More relevant to the topic is can or can't a DOT Officer search a CMV without a warrant. Based on rulings by the Supreme Court back in the 80's on motorhome searches it will be logical that the answer is they can.

And that would include everything in the CMV - computer, cellphone, cabinets, etc.

Now the other question is because the safety of the general public with regards to the operation of a CMV is a big concern is suspicion of a criminal act required for a warrantless search or not.

Some states like IL, CA, AZ and TX have taken the position of no. They feel that if it performed during a random inspection then this is allowed (other states may take same approach but I have not read about it).

As far as searching your cell phone. If an officer believes he saw you texting he doesn't even have to look at your cell phone to write you a ticket. And then just like every other ticket, you have the ability to prove your innocence in a court.

In IL, it is a two court visit process. The first will be the judge issuing an order to your carrier to provide the records to the court. The second will be after the records have arrived for the judge to review.

Myself, I'll gladly hand over my cell to avoid the expense and hassle. If you call this giving up some of my rights, so be it. I will gladly give up that right to make it easier for the officers to protect my right not to be run off the road by some super trucker who is texting or some 4-wheeler tweeting they are running late.

 

Yeah, cause pulling you over just because you're in a cmv and searching your phone based on some old law dealing with motorhomes, which are not cmv's, is totally going to stop someone in a car from driving like a re-tard. Some people need to go back to kindergarden and relearn what they missed about not touching things that aren't yours.

 

Bill, if this was about safety I would still have an issue with it. As it is this will not help with anything in the nature of safety, in reality it is just further invasion of personal property. This is no different than wire tapping and getting information about you that way. I am sure there are people saying "if you have nothing to hide what is the problem"? The problem is that that if you were to do the same thing without a badge it would be illegal. Our police force has become nothing other than a tool working towards a utilitarian government, the same thing was done by the communists. Give up a few personal freedoms for the "greater good". the problem is the people in charge will always have a few more "minor" liberties you need to give up in order to make the world "safer".

 

My feelings on all this would be different if we started hearing about abuses of CMVs being searched and a state taking a position that along with CDL, BOL, Logs, etc they asked to look at my cell. I can’t see that as being justified.

But I also don’t believe that in the course of looking for someone that committed and crime all they have to go on was someone driving a truck as the same color as mine that they need to justify that to me. Whatever I can do to make their job easier so they can find who they are looking for is my obligation as a citizen.

And again, that is based on not seeing that this is being abused. AND THERE ARE NO CASES THAT I CAN FIND THAT CLAIMS A STATES DOT IS DOING THIS.

Best case I can think of was that trucker that was texting and ran a car off the road a killed two people. Descriptions of the 911 calls had color of truck, guy texting and woman in passenger seat. DOT was pulling same color trucks in asking to look at cell phone and look in back of cab. I sure don’t want to be the SOB saying no making it harder for them to catch this guy.

They caught the guy as he was trying to bypass the scales but they had two cars and 6 officers tied-up watching the two trucks that refused to allow them to look in the cab.

And for the slow learners out there. Once I start seeing abuse of that trust, I will be the first to say no, I was right beside you as a citizen to make your jobs easier but you have violated my trust and now you have to justify your request with a legal justification.