US SC rules law enforcement needs warrant to search cellphone data
Washington, June 23 : The US Supreme Court has ruled that law enforcement in most cases has to obtain a warrant in order to search and seize long-term cell phone records that would show a person's location.
In a 5-4 ruling on Friday, the court held that the Fourth Amendment's protections against an unreasonable search protects people from having the government acquire their cell-site records from wireless providers in run-of-the-mill criminal investigations, reports The Hill magazine.
Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court's four liberal justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, to make up the majority.
Justice Anthony Kennedy dissented along with conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch.
The ruling marked a major win for privacy rights in the digital age.
The plaintiff in the case was Timothy Carpenter, who was arrested in April 2011 for several armed robberies in Detroit, reports Efe news.
Carpenter was sentenced to 116 years in prison, as he was considered to be the mastermind of a group of thieves and the person responsible for purchasing firearms for the group.
Prosecutors had asked Carpenter's wireless provider to hand over his cell phone records, which allowed them to follow his location during 127 days and determine that he was near the stores that were robbed.
The Supreme Court ruling, written by Chief Justice Roberts, sides with Carpenter and declines "to grant the state unrestricted access to a wireless carrier's database of physical location information".
According to the ruling, the government will generally need a warrant to obtain cell phone records, although some exceptions are possible, as when a suspect is on the run or is putting others in danger.
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Jhansi fire: Nurse's heroic efforts helped save over dozen babies
Lucknow/Jhansi (UP), Nov 17: Nurse Megha James was on duty when the fire broke out at the Jhansi hospital and she threw herself headlong into the rescue efforts, playing a hero's role by saving several babies.
Even when her salwar got burned, she refused to give up and was able to evacuate 14-15 babies with others' help.
"I had gone to take a syringe to give an injection to a child. When I came back, I saw that the (oxygen) concentrator had caught fire. I called the ward boy, who came with the fire extinguisher and tried to put it out. But by then, the fire had spread," James said.
Ten babies perished in a fire that broke out at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the Maharani Laxmi Bai Medical College in Jhansi Friday night.
Faced with an enormous blaze, James's mind worked with a frenetic speed, to the extent she cared little about burning herself.
"My chappal caught fire and I burned my foot. Then my salwar caught fire. I removed my salwar and discarded it. At that time, my mind was virtually not working," she told PTI Videos.
James just wore another salwar and went back to the rescue operation.
"There was a lot of smoke, and once the lights went out, we could not see anything. The entire staff brought out at least 14-15 children. There were 11 beds in the ward with 23-24 babies," she said.
Had the lights not gone out they could have saved more children, James said. "It all happened very suddenly. None of us had expected it."
Assistant Nursing Superintendent Nalini Sood praised James's valour and recounted bits from how the rescue operation was carried out.
"The hospital staff broke the glasses of the NICU ward to evacuate the babies. It was then Nurse Megha's salwar caught fire. Instead of caring for her safety, she stayed there to rescue the babies and handed them over to people outside," she said.
Sood said James is currently undergoing treatment at the same medical college. She said she did not know the extent of her burns.
"The rescued babies were shifted to a ward very close to the NICU ward… When I recall the scene, I feel like crying," she said.
Dr Anshul Jain, the head of the anaesthesiology department at the medical college, explained the standard rescue operation and claimed the hospital followed the protocol to the T.
"In the triage process during an ICU evacuation, the policy is to evacuate less-affected patients first. The rationale behind this approach is that patients requiring minimal support can be relocated quickly, enabling a larger number of evacuations to be completed in a shorter time.
"In contrast, patients on ventilators or requiring high oxygen support demand more time and resources for evacuation," he said.
"This principle was successfully implemented in Jhansi, playing a significant role in saving many lives," Jain said.
A newborn rescued from the fire died due to illness on Sunday, Jhansi District Magistrate Avinash Kumar said.
