Jun 09
2009Court: Police need warrant to read text messages
Filed Under (Uncategorized) by Gary on 09-06-2009
Tagged Under : courts
An appeals court ruled yesterday that Pennsylvania’s wiretapping law applies to text messages, throwing out evidence police had obtained by sending fake messages over a suspect’s phone.
The three-judge Superior Court panel ruled that police needed a warrant under the Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act when reading phone messages from a suspect who did not realize his replies were being read by investigators trying to draw him in.
This is a ridiculous ruling. The owner of the cell phone was now working with the investigators. That should make a warrant unnecessary. It doesn’t matter he was now going to jail. That is the equivalent of having a suspect talk another into a trap.
