Tag Archives: privacy

A recent report confirms that law enforcement employees have been improperly accessing Minnesota’s state driver’s license database, and state lawmakers are reportedly scrambling to put a bill together to address the privacy violations.    Minnesota Moves to Protect Privacy The report, “Law Enforcement’s Use of State Databases,” was released by the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor on Feb. 20; it examined both the state’s driver’s license database and its Incident-Based Reporting System. “We found that inadequate controls and insufficient …

The United States Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday on whether DNA samples can be collected from crime suspects without a warrant. In Maryland v. King, the court is expected to decide whether the policy of 28 states and the federal government to swab DNA from arrestees is a violation of privacy rights, in what Justice Samuel Alito called “the most important criminal procedure case this Court has had in decades.” At issue is whether taking DNA constitutes an invasive search …

Police everywhere must be thankful that crooks and thugs just can’t bear to leave their phones at home. In a recent case, a domestic abuse and kidnapping suspect with a bodacious hairstyle was captured thanks to phone tracking technology and Google Earth. Edward Johnson, 36, was tracked to a Philadelphia suburb based on location data from two calls he made on his cell phone. Law enforcement officials then pinpointed the specific block he was on using Google Earth. Johnson was …

Home addresses that are part of public records can be disclosed to the public via open records requests, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled last week. The court upheld a 2012 lower court decision that stated “there is no constitutional right to privacy in one’s home address under the Pennsylvania Constitution.” Most state laws specifically exempt home addresses from records requests, as does the federal Freedom of Information Act. The Pennsylvania ruling is in response to a lawsuit filed by Mel M. Marin, who wanted …

In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court Monday ruled that an alert by a trained drug-sniffing dog constitutes probable cause for a police search under most circumstances. In Florida v. Harris, the court rejected the notion that law enforcement would have to produce a detailed record of a dog’s reliability in order for its detection process to stand up in court, deciding that simple proof of training was enough. “If a bona fide organization has certified a dog after testing …