Law Enforcement Access to Smart Phone Data

Law Enforcement Access to Smart Phone Data
Research Topic: Law Enforcement Access to Smart Phone Data
Cases:
1. United States v. Keck https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-keck-2
2. Riley v. California https://casetext.com/case/riley-v-cal-united-states-1
Issues:
1. Under what conditions or circumstances are law enforcement officers allowed to search an individual’s personal devices?
2. Under what conditions are law enforcement agencies allowed to remotely access an individual’s personal devices?
Research Questions:
1. Does the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provide protection against searches of an individual’s personal devices, e.g. smart phones or tablets?
2. Do legal precedents allowing warrantless physical searches of smart phones extend to allowing the use of forensic technologies to obtain local and/or remote access to data stored on the device?
3. What technologies are available to law enforcement agencies for use in conducting local and/or remote search and recovery of data from personal devices such as smart phones, tablet computers, etc.?
Approach:
1. Your research must include articles in professional journals and/or other types of scholarly publications (e.g. dissertations or theses).
2. For example, the summary must have at least two (2) sources.
3. Research the two cases listed in this assignment as well as similar cases in the United States at both the state and federal levels. Your research should include locating information relevant to answering the legal question and issues listed above.
4. Research technologies used to bypass restrictions on access to user data stored on smart phones (see https://www.lawfareblog.com/law-enforcement-accessing-locked-devices-quite-well-thank-you ). Include both local (physical) access and remote access (e.g. via spyware).
5. Research mobile forensics products including those which are restricted to authorized parties such as law enforcement organizations. See https://www.wired.com/story/smartphone-encryption-law-enforcement-tools/ Identify three or more appropriate products, their capabilities, and any restrictions on purchase or use imposed by the vendor or by laws.
6. Using your research, answer the three research questions including information about the availability and use of technology solutions and mobile forensics products to augment law enforcement searches of personal devices.
Write:
Using your research, write a 5 page analysis of the legal and technological issues listed in this assignment including providing answers to the three research questions (citing sources for the information you provide in your answers). Your research paper must include the following:
1. An Introduction section that provides an overview of the issues and research questions listed at the beginning of this assignment.
2. An Analysis section in which you address the following:
a. Why are the stated issues important? (Include examples)
b. Why are the research questions important? (Include examples of both technical issues and legal principles in your analysis of the questions).
c. Your research-based analysis which provides answers to the research questions (including citations to sources which support your answers).
3. A summary section in which you summarize your analysis and your answers to the research questions.
Your work WILL be scanned by Turn It In.
Additional Information
1. You should have at least ten different, authoritative or scholarly sources cited in your work and listed in your reference list.
2. Your submission must have a separate title page with the assignment title, your name, the course and section, and the date due. You must also have a list of references on a separate page at the end of the file. These pages do not count in the recommended page count of this assignment.
3. Your research report should be professional in appearance with consistent use of fonts, font sizes, margins, etc. You should use headings to organize your paper.
4. You are expected to credit your sources using in-text citations and reference list entries. Both your citations and your reference list entries must follow a consistent citation style (APA, MLA, etc.). You are expected to write grammatically correct English in every assignment that you submit for grading. Do not turn in any work without (a) using spell check, (b) using grammar check, (c) verifying that your punctuation is correct and (d) reviewing your work for correct word usage and correctly structured sentences and paragraphs