Law Commons^™

Revising Reasonableness In The Cloud, Ian Walsh

Washington Law Review

Save everything—just in case––and search for it later. This is a modern mantra fueled by the ubiquity of smartphones, laptops, tablets, and free or low-cost data storage that leads users to store massive amounts of data in the cloud. But when users trust third-party cloud storage providers with private communications, they also surrender Fourth Amendment constitutional certainty. Existing statutory safeguards for these communications are lower than Fourth Amendment warrant and probable cause standards; this permits the government to seize large quantities of users’ private communications stored in the cloud with only minimal justification. Due to the revealing nature of such …

Suspects, Cars & Police Dogs: A Complicated Relationship, Brian R. Gallini

Washington Law Review

Officers are searching and arresting vehicle occupants without a warrant with increasing regularity. For justification, this Article demonstrates, lower courts across the country unconstitutionally expand the scope of the Fourth Amendment’s automobile exception—often in the context of a positive dog alert. But Supreme Court jurisprudence specifically limits the scope of the automobile exception to warrantless searches of cars and their containers. In other words, the probable cause underlying the automobile exception allows police to search a vehicle and its containers—nothing more.

Despite that clear guidance, this Article argues that a growing number of lower courts nationwide unconstitutionally rely on the …

Constitutionality Of A Search And Seizure, Without Warrant, Of An Automobile—Reasonable Cause—Anonymous Tips, Sherman R. Huffine

Washington Law Review

Since the case of Carroll v. United States, it has become a generally recognized principle of law that an officer may make a search and seizure of an automobile without a warrant, provided that the officer has probable cause to make the search. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States specifically is aimed to protect the people against "unreasonable searches and seizures." The Carroll case is based on the theory that if the other has probable cause the search of an automobile is not an unreasonable search. The distinction drawn is that while the warrant can easily …