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Running head: Mobile Operating System Encryption

Mobile Operating System Encryption

Student Raymond Garcia

University of San Diego: Professional & Continuing Education

Critical Issues in Law Enforcement & Public Safety LEPS-530-01-SP16

Professor Michael Begovich

February 29, 2016

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Running head: Mobile Operating System Encryption

Recently your agencies Terrorism Response Unit, was tipped by an informant

who is a member of controversial political group, who advocate the use of violence

to spread their political ideology. The group is known to recruit disgruntled government

employees including former military and law enforcement officials. Your informant

provided you with credible information that he obtained regarding the planned attack

of four active shooter events that will be coordinated at the same time. Your informant

who now has a guilty conscious, has provided you with a I-phone cell phone possibly

containing information about the operations plan and others who maybe involved.

The four locations included in the planned active shooter event include two schools, one

hospital and one other unknown location. The date and time is still unknown however

your informant says the event will take place within the next 1 to 2 days. Your informant

who has taken his roommates cell phone and note book containing some operations plans

without permission, gives it to you in hopes of preventing the attack. You are aware of

a new spyware I-phone application that will download itself onto the I-phone, with

the help of a laptop and sync cable running the software. As the lead investigator in your

unit, will you bypass getting a search warrant to legally access the I-phone information?

As the lead investigator, does the fact that the information provided by the informant

weigh heavily on preventing the deaths of innocent people rather than abiding with the

law? How does obtaining this information without a search warrant affect your investigation?

After informing your chain of command about the situation write a brief memo to your

Detective Sergeant informing him/her of the best solution to dealing with this issue before

taking a course of action.

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Running head: Mobile Operating System Encryption

As a stake holder of this organization, the recent complications resulting from case law

in Riley V. California, has lead to restrictions of accessing data from confiscated cell phones. As

a result, this topic has been the controversial subject of whether accessing data for the

overall good of public safety, outweighs current case law decisions. After carefully reviewing this

matter, there are remedies that can be sought instead of illegally bypassing the legal

requirements to access phone data information. There are two solutions, besides obtaining

a search warrant, that I recommend to remedy this problem. My first solution is the

authorization of examining of cellphone data through the means of gaining consent. My other

solution is utilizing the appropriate search under circumstances that would be considered

emergencies or exigent circumstances.

These solutions are the best remedy for this problem because with consent, the expectation

of privacy is diminished and the person doing the search has been granted the legal authority

to examine the content. With exigent circumstances the person conducting the search has

knowledge that information pertaining to a crime is confined within the cell phone data

and recovery of this data is of utter most importance. The content pertaining to the search

will justify that the safeguarding of life, within limited time restraints, shall give the person

searching, the legal authority to by-pass obtaining a search warrant.

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In the above mentioned instance, the informant who provided the cellphone and a notebook

containing some of the part of the operational plans, had reason to believe that an active

shooter incident was going to take place within 1-2 days, at 4 different locations coordinated at

the same time. The other details of the operations plan were possibly located in the data

contained in the phone. Of course obtaining a search warrant to breach the cell phone data

would always be the best method of fulfilling the legal requirement in Riley V. California,

however investigators need to be aware of other viable options. In this instance, there was

enough information provided by the informant suggesting that this attack maybe credible and

a search under emergencies or exigent circumstances was the quickest solution. Using this

method, I believe the legal requirement in Riley V. California was fulfilled and should not effect

any evidence recovered to prevent the active shooter attack. If additional information was

recovered during the investigation regarding crimes not specifically related to the initial

investigation than the investigator should retrieve a rollback warrant for that information

uncovered in that scope of the search.

There are several other possibilities that were explored, however due to specific circumstances

needed to take place, the probability of this being utilized was not very likely. Some of these

past practices that were reviewed were also intrusive and through case-law were found to be

violations of expectation of privacy. The first example is officer safety. Officer safety is likely to

used in an officers report to justify looking through the content of a cellphone, however the

Supreme Court ruled that an officers safety is not threatened by a cellphone, as compared to

another object as such a weapon. The ruling also stated that the fear of evidence destruction

did not justify by-passing a warrant.

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Another option that was viewed as not being an option was the vehicle exception rule. Based

off of this ruling, contents within a vehicle serve as a lower expectation of privacy when

this rule is being enforced in the appropriate circumstances. The rule however goes into

search and seizure doctrines that determined that a cellphone is considered an object that

contains data information that has an expectation of privacy, preventing a warrantless search.

Another option that would be considered to remedy specific issues with searching cellphones,

is a good faith doctrine. The good faith doctrine would apply a person searching the cellphone

believes that the item is lost, stolen or abandoned. This search is however only limited to

accessing information that would lead to the discovery of the owner. The measure taken

by the person searching needs to be objectively reasonable.

In conclusion this information regarding cellphone searches will be forwarded to the

organization executive, management, sergeants and all training staff. Sergeants will enforce

these doctrines and prevent officers from initiating incidents that would violate the rights

of privacy of others resulting from the lack of obtaining a search warrant. These parameters

are set so that they will protect the integrity of any future investigations dealing with the

search and seizure of cell phone data.

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References

Riley v. California, 134 S.Ct. 2473 (2014). 134 S.Ct. 2473 Supreme Court of the United StatesDavid Leon
RILEY, Petitioner v. CALIFORNIA. United States, Petitioner v. Brima Wurie. Nos. 13132, 13212. |
Argued April 29, 2014. | Decided June 25, 2014.

Riley v. California: Harvard LawReview (2014). Fourth Amendment Search and Seizure Searching
Cell Phones Incident to Arrest Riley v. California 134 S. Vol. 128:251

U.S. v. Camou, 773 F.3d 932 (2013). 14 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 13,747, 2014 Daily Journal D.A.R. 16,346
2015 Thomson Reuters. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. 1773 F.3d 932 United States Court
of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. UNITED STATES of America, PlaintiffAppellee, v. Chad Daniel CAMOU,
DefendantAppellant.