EPIC Asks NJ Supreme Court to Apply Fifth Amendment to Cell Phone Searches

July 23, 2019

EPIC has submitted an amicus brief in State v. Andrews, a New Jersey Supreme Court case about the compelled disclosure of a cell phone passcode. In the brief, EPIC argued that the Fifth Amendment limits the ability of the government to obtain cellphone passcodes. EPIC explained that the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions in Riley v. California and Carpenter v. United States found that the vast amounts of personal data stored in cell phones "justifies strong constitutional protections." EPIC also explained that exceptions to the Fifth Amendment were adopted before personal information was "consolidated in one place." EPIC has long filed "friend of the court" briefs arguing that constitutional protections should keep pace with advances in technology. EPIC filed amicus briefs in Carpenter and Riley, which both involved the searches of cellphones. The U.S. Supreme Court cited EPIC's amicus brief in its opinion.

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