Ability + opportunity. That’s an equation that often results in trouble. It certainly did for several California Highway Patrol officers, who dug through suspects’ phones, sometimes for evidence and sometimes just to pass around any intimate photos they happened to come across. It happened so often that one officer now being investigated referred to it as a “game.”

This is probably not limited to the sunny climes of California, but a similar incident occurred within the Palo Alto Police Department, resulting in another investigation.
A Palo Alto Police Department detective has been disciplined for sending a supervisor a picture of a “scantily clad” woman he found on her cellphone while investigating her involvement in an alleged burglary, according to a new independent police auditor’s report…

An interrogation of a burglary suspect resulted in the officer “taking” her phone to look through it for evidence. The (unnamed) officer then forwarded the photo to the supervisory detective.

(This happened in early 2014, apparently ahead of the Supreme Court decision imposing a warrant requirement. I doubt it would have mattered even if it had occurred past this point. Securing a warrant wouldn’t have prevented the officer from sharing the photo. And I doubt many law enforcement officers are advising suspects of this new requirement. What’s most likely happening is a slight rearranging that turns a demand into a question, with little to no decrease in the number of searched phones.)

Read the Full Article: Source – Tech Dirt
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141130/15251229280/another-california-cop-shares-suspects-intimate-photos-with-his-fellow-officers.shtml

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