Riley v. California and digital privacy rights in law enforcement

Digital forensics was a field that simply didn't exist a few decades ago. This field has opened the door to abilities for crime and the need for law enforcement in properly preventing crime as well. The FBI believes so strongly in the power of digital forensics, that they are establishing regional labs all over the country to examine digital evidence in a range of investigations -- in everything from child pornography to economic espionage (fbi.gov, 2013). "Anything that can store data electronically can be analyzed," said Special Agent Justin Poirier, deputy director of the Chicago RCFL… 'Digital evidence has become part of just about every type of investigation," Poirier said, "because today everybody uses computers and portable electronics such as cell phones'" (fbi.gov, 2013). However, laws still govern personal privacy and there are still strict guidelines regarding what can and cannot be analyzed.

In fact one recent case has definitively impacted the evidentiary process of digital forensic cases. The case Riley vs. California has confronted the issue of privacy head on. Every individual has a digital footprint. Nearly every individual has a computer and a cell phone. So many recent cases have confronted the issue regarding whether or not police have the right to go through one's cell phone if they apprehend you. Thus, in this landmark case, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously, that the police needed a search warrant if they wanted to go through the user's phone or tablet. Such a decision is likely to have remarkable, far-reaching effects as nearly 12 million people are arrested each year (Liptak, 2014). The highest court in the land has at times suffered criticism for existing in what some refer to as a vacuum and for not being in touch with the current needs and times of society.

Regardless of these accusations, "Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the court, was keenly alert to the central role that cell phones play in contemporary life. They are, he said, 'such a pervasive and insistent part of daily life that the proverbial visitor from Mars might conclude they were an important feature of human anatomy'" (Liptak, 2014). It's good that the court has such an intensive awareness of the realities of the current day and age. Searching through someone's cell phone or tablet gives one a glimpse into their mind. It's a massive invasion of privacy. This is a right that needs to be held near and dear to the individual and society needs to continue to fight for the protection of those rights. Thus, this landmark case has prevented the police from seizing people's phones and other portable mobile devices as a means of gathering evidence whenever they feel like it, in spite of the invasion that occurs.

For example, when the tragic Virginia Tech killings occurred, so many people were speculating on the mind of the murderer. However, it was only until the police were actually able to gain access to the killer's computer were they able to truly understand what was going on in the mind of the killer. As police asserted, one can build an entire psychological profile by gaining access to someone's computer (Noyes, 2014). Even the Supreme Court seems to be aware of this, particularly when it comes to cellular phones and all that they can do. As one Chief Justice Roberts, wrote: "The average smartphone user has installed 33 apps," he wrote, "which together can form a revealing montage of the user's life" (Liptak, 2014). Police officers have absolutely no right to have access to such information without reasonable cause and the effort needed to apprehend a warrant.

A case which helped to change the way that digital data and evidence is eventually analyzed was indeed the TJX & Heartland case. In 2008, a small group of people were charged with stealing the credit card information from a range of major retailers, including TJ Maxx and Barnes and Noble. The regional teams has to work with the U.S. Secret Service and gather evidence to create forensic pictures and to analyze that data with a particular network of computers known as the Clustered Computing Analysis Platform (C-CAP). The criminals in question used truly sophisticated methods and data configurations and thus the experts who were faced with the task of analyzing this data had to meet the task in question using the most cutting edge tools. "Since existing tools used to discover compromised credit card and financial account numbers produced many false positives, the DIID team also developed a new tool called CCFinder. CCFinder is more effective than previous tools at finding and validating account numbers and eliminating duplicate numbers" (cert.org, 2014). This can be so damaging because it essentially causes all the investigators to run around in circles during their investigation -- making no real accomplishments.

This is also so problematic because the investigators are dealing with unfathomably large amounts of data. Thus, this particular case meant that all experts involved had to push for a new form of technology which would provide a higher standard of data analysis. The CCFinder didn't disappoint in a wide variety of ways, particularly in the fact that it established something known as a "pedigree" which demonstrated where each number was found and which also provides a path for how they were traded (cert.org). Thus, one of the most valuable aspects that CCFinder offered was the intensive simplification: "CCFinder was a big deal when we were working with 3 million account numbers,' said team member Matthew Geiger. "Then we quickly went from there to 45 million in the TJX case" (cert.org). Such amounts of data could be staggering for any other investigation team -- so staggering that it would become unmanageable and ultimately cause the investigation to fail. CCFinder was able to prevent human error, and allow for better tracking in cases like these -- cases where there is an element of human espionage.