Maine and Utah have also implemented these protections. This movement is being called the Digital 4th Amendment and has at website at http://www.digital4th.org
But Ted Stevens got the mental model right. The internet is supposed to be a series of tubes, the tube is supposed not to care what flows through it. This approach has been very good for innovation, very much unlike the walled gardens we are seeing today.
As funny as it is watching him explain how he understood it, the fact remains is he probably understood it better than the majority of people in that room.
So the tools, infrastructure and contacts are all there for police to hit a button / make a phone call and get your private data.
Why bother getting a warrant if you can open your laptop and have your suspicions validated in five minutes?
Access shouldn't be in the hands of local departments with little to no accountability. I'd go as far to say that access shouldn't be made available at all, but it's almost 2016 and that isn't changing.
> These protections apply not only to your devices, but to online services that store your data.
I assume this is referring to giving a warrant to the company holding my data for me. I would like this to go a step beyond that and require law enforcement to sign a warrant that it presents to me, since it's my data.
California law will not trump any law at the federal level. This will only affect the local police and not the FBI, NSA or anyone else who wants your data. Of course if they happen to share it with the police just for grins...
The Justice Department is already requiring warrants for federal agents using stingrays. That decision didn't affect local/state departments, but AFAICT everything in California is covered under one or the other now.
