During the oral argument in Riley v. California, the U.S. Supreme Court case involving warrantless searches of cellphones, a telling exchange took place between Justice Sonia Sotomayor and counsel for the petitioner. The justice queried what happens to seized digital materials after they are searched. Assuming they are not evidence or contraband, are they simply returned to their owner?
Counsel for the petitioner, Jeffrey Fisher, pointed out that the government is now preserving copies of at least some of this seized data in “an ever-growing federal database,” for use “indefinitely into the future.” Hence, he argued for the necessity of search warrants for cell-phones — and by extension any physical or virtual container of electronic data — that will delineate not only the terms of how these vast repositories of information may be searched, but also how, and for how long, their data may be retained.
