Political Quotes

“In 2014, in a unanimous ruling delivered by Chief Justice Roberts, the Supreme Court concluded that the police may not search a cell phone without first demonstrating probable cause. Citing an obvious Fourth Amendment interest in the vast amount of data we store on our personal devices, the Court wrote: ``The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought. Our answer to the question of what police must do before searching a cell phone seized incident to an arrest is accordingly simple--get a warrant.'' With that decision, the Court took a bold step toward reconciling the Fourth Amendment with the advent of modern communications technology. Today, the House takes a similar step to reconcile our interests in privacy and due process with the realities of modern computing. H.R. 699, the Email Privacy Act, recognizes that the content of our communications, although often stored in digital format, remains worthy of Fourth Amendment protection. And to the investigators and government agents who seek access to our email, our advice is accordingly simple: Get a warrant. It is an idea whose time has long since come. This bill will allow us to move to a clear, uniform standard for law enforcement agencies to access the content of our communications, namely, a warrant based on probable cause. H.R.…”