[lbo-talk] California court ok's searches of cell phones withoutwarrant

[Jordan Hayes]

> SAN FRANCISCO
> January 3, 2011 1:59pm
>
> If you're arrested in California, even for a traffic stop, police
> can rifle through the old text messages, photos, video and voice
> mail on your cell phone without a warrant, the state Supreme Court 
> says.

And yet just the other day:

U.S. Ordered to Pay Group of Muslims

WASHINGTON — A federal judge ordered the government on Tuesday to pay 
nearly $2.6 million in lawyers’ fees and damages to officials with a 
shuttered Islamic charity in Oregon who the judge said were wiretapped 
without a court order under the surveillance program approved by 
President George W. Bush after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The ruling by Vaughn R. Walker, the chief federal judge in San 
Francisco, punctuates a years-long lawsuit that tested the balance 
between civil liberties and the president’s authority.

[...]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/us/22charity.html