Know Your 4th Amendment Rights When It Comes To Police Searching Your Phone or Computer

The Fourth Amendment, the one that protects you from unreasonable government searches and seizures, how well do you know it? What about how it applies to police want to search your password-protected laptop or smartphone? The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a great write-up to help you know your rights.

The EFF provides this helpful information on their website, as a 1-page whitepaper (.pdf), or as a thorough Know Your Rights PDF.

Before you come across the situation where a police officer is asking to see your smartphone or computer and you have to decide to turn it over or not, it’s worth it to read the EFF’s presentation to know your rights. Since most will never even see a warrant, they also discuss what is required of a warrant to search your computer.

After you’ve given it a read through, you can take the Know Your Digital Rights Quiz to see how well you know the information.