It’s not a Fourth Amendment search if a cop swipes your credit card, court finds -- Mag stripe simply contains same info that's clearly visible, so no warrant needed. [More]It's not "clearly visible" unless he takes it out of my wallet and examines it. What's he doing that for without a warrant?
[Via Florida Guy]
3 comments:
And they're not quite right. While the mag stripe usually just contains the same info visible on the card, it will sometimes also contain the PIN and other security codes that are supposed to be secret and held only by the card's owner.
This comment in no way offers legal advice. At no time do my hands leave my wrists.
The credit and debit cards were in a duffle bag in the automobile's trunk.
The officer needed probable cause to open and search the trunk.
The officer needed probable cause to open and search the duffle bag found in the trunk.
Once no drugs were found in the vehicle, any gesture or behaviors that the dog exhibited did not justify any further action.
A mag stripe's contents are not directly visible to the casual viewer. They require a mag stripe reader to decode the information on the nag stripe. Consider it similar to opening a box to see what is inside, entry into a dwelling to examine the contents, or inserting a thumb drive into a computer to determine the contents of a thumb drive, which all are not directly visible to the casual viewer.
It appears that the court is working awfully hard to justify this chain of violations of the 4th Amendment.
It appears that the officer was motivated by the potential benefits to his agency of the possessions of the driver that were seized, with the burden of proof that they were lawfully possessed left to the driver for him to regain possession.
"Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate’s Electronic Recovery and Access to Data (ERAD) Prepaid Card Reader"
"DIRECTORATE"? Now we have Directorates? Agencies, Bureaus,Departments, and now frackin' Directorates!
I'm done, just soylent green me.
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