If I do not password protect my phone, do I forfeit reasonable expectation of privacy? Let's say I am arrested and I have a smartphone in my possession. A police officer cannot, without a warrant, seize my phone, unlock it and go through my pictures, messages, etc. The US Supreme Court unanimously concurred in Riley v. California. In such a case, a person who locks his phone is asserting a reasonable expectation of privacy and the 4th Amendment protects said person. Now let’s say I am arrested and I have a non-password-protected smartphone in my possession. The phone is completely unlocked. By simply not setting a password or other “lock screen,” have I inadvertently waived my expectation of privacy? The closest court case I’ve found is US Court of Appeals 6th circuit Huff v Spaw. The phone owner accidentally pocket-dialed another person. The court held (to paraphrase) that while the phone owner assumed an expectation of privacy, he did not exhibit the expectation of privacy because he did not take precautions to prevent pocket-dialing. Without a warrant, the police cannot enter your house, even if your closed front door is unlocked. But phones are not houses and the expectation of privacy is different. I’m wondering if there are any court cases, laws, etc. that confirm or deny that I have (or don’t have) a reasonable expectation of privacy if I choose to not password-protect my smartphone.
I'm not aware of case law on point, other than Riley, which you mention (which doesn't mean that there isn't any - I'm not a specialist in this area). But, I think that the answer would be that you do have an expectation of privacy because the Riley holding that there was an expectation of privacy in a smart phone didn't really hinge in any meaningful way on the existence of a password. The linked summary of the Riley decision explains the court's reasoning as follows: Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. wrote the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Court held that the warrantless search exception following an arrest exists for the purposes of protecting officer safety and preserving evidence, neither of which is at issue in the search of digital data. The digital data cannot be used as a weapon to harm an arresting officer, and police officers have the ability to preserve evidence while awaiting a warrant by disconnecting the phone from the network and placing the phone in a "Faraday bag." The Court characterized cell phones as minicomputers filled with massive amounts of private information, which distinguished them from the traditional items that can be seized from an arrestee's person, such as a wallet. The Court also held that information accessible via the phone but stored using "cloud computing" is not even "on the arrestee's person." Nonetheless, the Court held that some warrantless searches of cell phones might be permitted in an emergency: when the government's interests are so compelling that a search would be reasonable. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. wrote an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment in which he expressed doubt that the warrantless search exception following an arrest exists for the sole or primary purposes of protecting officer safety and preserving evidence. In light of the privacy interests at stake, however, he agreed that the majority's conclusion was the best solution. Justice Alito also suggested that the legislature enact laws that draw reasonable distinctions regarding when and what information within a phone can be reasonably searched following an arrest. The 4th Amendment expressly protects "papers" in your possession, which can't be password protected, and a smart phone file is analogous to a "paper" for 4th Amendment purposes. Your expectation of privacy in an unlocked smart phone flows from your exclusive possession of the phone as a piece of tangible personal property containing information, and not just from the password protection. In the same vein, I don't think that you would need to have a lock on a diary to have an expectation of privacy in it. This said, this is a cutting edge area of the law and password protection for a smart phone provides both more practical protection and potentially a less ambiguous cases of legal protection from search (since it brings you closer to the facts of Riley), and is therefore still a good idea.
The Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees assistance of counsel for the accused in all criminal prosecutions. The Fifth Amendment protects a person from being forced to self-incriminate. Taken together, in Miranda v. Arizona, the Supreme Court interpreted this to mean that police cannot continue interrogation after you have requested an attorney. Laughter is actually not a violation of your rights, the violation would come from continuing to interrogate you, or in prohibiting you from contacting your attorney or not providing an attorney if you cannot afford one (via the public defender's office).
Is this illegal? No, subject to some possible narrow exceptions discussed below. Do the social media companies have a duty under the First Amendment to not censor users? No. Indeed, usually, there is greater liability exposure for failing to censor content, for example, by failing to honor a "take down notice" under Title II of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act based upon an alleged copyright violation, or for failure to censor content related to potential sex trafficking. The First Amendment to the United State Constitution (which applies to state and local government via the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution) is a limitation on the power of governmental actors only. This said, some state constitutions, such as California's, provide free speech protections not just from government action, but also in spaces that are privately owned, but are open to the public and constitute de facto public forums. The authority of California to expand its state constitutional protections to these private settings was confirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74 (1980). It is conceivable that these doctrines could be expanded to public Internet forums in the case of California based social media companies (e.g., Facebook has its headquarters in Menlo Park, California; so does its sister platform Instagram; LinkedIn is based in Sunnyvale, California; and Google is based in Mountain View, California). There are also laws that limit how employers can regulate employee speech in a labor relations context, although most of them don't have constitutional dimensions. It is conceivable that these doctrines could limit social media platform's authority to limit some kinds of speech by their own employees, or in situations where the social media platform looked like it was acting as a mere agent of some other employer controlled by that employer for all practical purposes. There has also been litigation related to free speech on social media regarding the rights of governmental account holders to exercise the same kinds of account management that is available to other users, implicating the First Amendment right to petition the government. The social media platform operator is not itself the primary target in these cases, but if it simply implements its terms of service neutrally with respect to all account holders, it could be facilitating a constitutional violation by its governmental account holders and could conceivably be held liable for aiding and abetting that violation of the law by a governmental account holder (in the context of a lawsuit for money damages this is a special subtype of something called a civil conspiracy).
No, there is no recourse. An yes, the potential "costs", both personal, financial, social, can be high and are not compensable under an investigatory hold scenario; however, it doesn't usually happen like that. There is no investigatory hold that long without arrest. If the police want to talk to you but don't have enough to arrest you, you can leave any time. If you call your lawyer, he/she will come to the police station and tell the cops to release or arrest you. If the police really want you to stay, likely there is probable cause and they can keep you anyway. The police can arrest you and keep you, without a warrant so long as there is "probable cause" to believe that a crime has been committed (by you). Once arrested without a warrant, this is what is usually referred to as an investigatory hold, where the law says you must be arraigned within 72 hours (some states it must be 48 hours, 1 day less than supreme court says is reasonable). During this time they can investigate their case against you and decide what, if any, charges they will bring. There is no recourse for this, (in the event they bring no charges) unless you can establish that you were held for no reason (including not being falsely identified) and that it was only to intentionally deprive you of your right to liberty. This is nearly impossible to prove, unless you really did nothing and the cop was just messing with you (for instance in a personal vendetta) and you can show that.
Such a search would have been emotionally satisfying for many people, but it would almost certainly not have been legal. Evidence that someone committed a crime is not always sufficient to permit a search of their home. An arrest warrant requires probable cause to believe the target individual committed an offense, and a search warrant requires probable cause to believe that the target location will have evidence of a crime. So whatever evidence they had that Epstein committed a crime, they would generally need a separate warrant to search his properties for evidence of that crime. There is no "emergency clause" for search warrants. I imagine you're thinking of the "exigency" exception to the requirement that the police obtain a warrant before searching property, which allows a search in cases where there is an actual emergency, where evidence is being destroyed, or when someone ducks into private property while officers are pursuing them. "Reasonable suspicicion of possible threats to ... potential victims" would not be enough to justify a search based on an exigency. If Epstein is already in jail, he doesn't really pose a threat to anyone, he isn't able to destroy any evidence, and no one is pursuing him anywhere.
united-states This question does not indicate in what jurisdiction the hypothetical events take place. Since they are hypothetical, I am going to assume the United States. Perhaps other answers will be given for other jurisdictions. I would be interested to read such answers. The Officer's Authority In the hypothetical situation described, it would appear that the police officer had no warrant or other court order, and that he did not have any probable cause to believe that any criminal activity was in progress, or that any crime had been committed. Indeed it would appear that the officer did not even have the &quot;reasonable suspicion&quot; required for a so-called Terry stop (named for the case, Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968) in which such stops were declared legal). In any case the encounter described is not a Terry stop, because such a stop takes place &quot;on the street&quot; or in a public place, not on private property. So far it seems that the police office is acting without lawful authority. When the man orders the officer to leave his property, the demand is lawful, and by not leaving, the officer becomes a trespasser, unless the officer has some justification not mentioned in the question. The Duty to Comply However, once the officer starts to give orders, the other person must generally treat them as lawful. There are exceptions: Officers cannot compel people to commit crimes, nor to submit to rape or murder. But orders given for the ostensible protection of the officer have particular deference. As the US Supreme court said in Terry v. Ohio (cited above): ... we cannot blind ourselves to the need for law enforcement officers to protect themselves and other prospective victims of violence in situations where they may lack probable cause for an arrest. When an officer is justified in believing that the individual whose suspicious behavior he is investigating at close range is armed and presently dangerous to the officer or to others, it would appear to be clearly unreasonable to deny the officer the power to take necessary measures to determine whether the person is, in fact, carrying a weapon and to neutralize the threat of physical harm. (emphasis added) Resisting the Officer Following the logic of Terry Courts tend to give deference to police assertions of the need to protect themselves. The modern tread is to require citizens to submit to police orders in such cases, even if the citizen believes the order to be unlawful, and even if the court eventually agrees. In many states, violent resistance to such orders would be a crime even if the order was later ruled unlawful. In every US state, he use of deadly force, by drawing and firing a gun at a police officer who has issued possibly unlawful orders, but has not threatened the life or well being of anyone, and has not used any force at all, would be clearly criminal. Nolo Press's article on &quot;Resisting Unlawful arrest&quot; says: Historically, American citizens were legally entitled to use reasonable force to resist unlawful arrest. Some states continue to follow this rule, while others don’t. A statute rejecting the traditional rule might say something like this: “You can’t use force to resist if you know or should know that you’re being arrested by a police officer, regardless of whether the arrest is legal.” ... It’s critical to note that one can be convicted of resisting arrest even without having committed the crime that was the basis for the arrest. It should be understood that even in those US states which follow the &quot;traditional rule&quot; and permit resistance to an unlawful arrest, only &quot;reasonable force&quot; is permitted. Shooting a gun at an officer is deadly force, and will not be reasonable unless the person has a justified belief that the officer is about to kill or seriously injure the arrestee or another person without justification. Also, if the arrest is somehow lawful, even though the arrestee reasonably believed it to be unlawful, the use of even &quot;reasonable&quot; force is no longer permitted, and the arrestee may be convicted of resisting arrestee and other crimes. This makes resistance a dangerous gamble, even in states that follow the traditional rule. In addition, resistance is all too likely to lead to escalation of the conflict, and end with the arrestee shot dead or seriously injured. Even if the officer's actions are later held unlawful, that will not bring the arrestee back to life. Under Color of Law The question asks if the office's actions are taken &quot;under color of law&quot;. They are, in US law. This does not mean that the acts are lawful or proper. Rather it means that they are take by means of legal authority. Such acts therefore constitute &quot;state action&quot; subject to the limitations of the 14th Amendment to the US Federal Constitution. The Wikipedia article on this topic (linked above) says: ... just because something is done with the &quot;color of law&quot; does not mean that the action was lawful. When police act outside their lawful authority and violate the civil rights of a citizen, the FBI is tasked with investigating. The well known &quot;section 1983&quot; (42 USC. § 1983) provides a private right of action in such cases, saying: Every person who under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, Suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress ... Here the hypothetical officer's entry onto private property, his refusal to leave when ordered by the owner, his order to put down the pistol and step away from the other guns (implying an arrest or detention), his order to stop recording and turn over the record, and his drawing of his firearm are all acts taken &quot;under color of law&quot;, and had the citizen submitted, he could have subsequently filed a Sec 1983 suit against the officer, although he would have had to establish harm done to collect more than nominal damages. The officer is relying on his authority as a police officer to enforce his orders, and indeed to support his presence on private property. This makes his actions clearly done &quot;under color of law&quot;.
This helpful video gives the answer, and it's no, you don't have to open your door unless they have a warrant. If you've committed an indictable offence (those considered most serious, such as murder, manslaughter, causing really serious harm (injury) and robbery) they have the power to enter without a warrant (see 17 b of the PACE Act). In the case I saw there was no indictable offence and so the lady didn't (shouldn't!) have opened her door. You can speak to them through a closed door or window and if they try to break in it is they that are breaking the law.
On the contrary there are hundreds of federal statutes that sanction civil forfeiture, as well as 18 U.S.C. § 983 (and other subsections inter alia) that governs civil forfeiture. What you seem to be more concerned with is the judicial oversight and regulations around civil forfeiture. The burden of proof varies between, and within, states - in some, prima facie/probable cause is all that is required, in others, a preponderance of evidence, or clear and convincing evidence is required. Just three states require proof beyond a reasonable doubt and civil forfeiture is only illegal in New Mexico. Civil forfeiture is subject to judicial review: a list of notable cases in civil forfeiture is available on Wikipedia. Here's some of the more interestingly-named ones: Marcus v. Search Warrant One 1958 Plymouth Sedan v. Pennsylvania Marcus v. Search Warrant held that the search and seizure procedures in that case lacked safeguards for due process, freedom of speech, and freedom of press. One 1958 Plymouth Sedan v. Pennsylvania held because the vehicle was searched without a warrant, and the untaxed liquor found thereby was used to invoke the forfeiture, the forfeiture was illegal (the Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures). So, what is the legal framework? Broadly speaking, 18 U.S.C 983, as well as state legislation. What recourse is there? Judicial review. However, the procedures vary between jurisdictions.