Washingtech Tech Policy Podcast With Joe Miller

  Hey everybody, I’m Joe Miller and here’s how tech law & policy is affecting you this week. En banc Fifth Circuit ruling solidifies police officers’ authority to expand cell phone searches   The Fifth Circuit, which is in Texas, decided that pictures of child pornography found on three cellphones in the van the defendant was driving when he was arrested couldn’t be suppressed even though the original warrants for the phones weren’t  related to the federal crime of receiving child pornography.    They arrested the defendant because they smelled marijuana and found an Advil bottle with ecstasy in it.   But when the officers searched the defendant’s van on the night of the arrest, they also found creepy stuff in the defendant’s car, like a child’s backpack filled with school supplies, sex toys, 100 pairs of women’s underwear, and a lollipop in the cup holder.   So the officers suspected that the defendant was a child predator. However, these items, in and of themselves, didn’t rise to the level of probab