New York top-ranking government officials - Governor Cuomo and Attorney General Schneiderman (who fund-raised for Hillary Clinton and obviously was promised a position in her administration) are adamantly anti-Trump-anything.
No matter what the President does, right or wrong, they are against it.
Yet, New York now tries to stealthily impose upon its own residents the very same invasions of privacy that the Trump administration is using to check incoming foreigners: warrantless access to cell phones.
New York Legislature is reviewing a bill that would allow police officers, under the guise of fighting with texting-while-driving, to get access to your cell phone without a search warrant, in obvious violation of the 4th Amendment, and that will impose penalties upon drivers who refuse such access to officers - well, how can you refuse is not clear if the officer can simply overpower you, take your cell phone and scan it.
With the only difference that the U.S. Constitution is inapplicable to aliens outside the borders of the U.S. (including airport immigration areas before entry is allowed), while warrantless searches of New Yorkers well within the borders of the U.S. is definite violation of the 4th Amendment.
The cause to scrap the 4th Amendment is, of course, lofty - protecting motorists and passengers, and pedestrians from "distracted drivers".
But, the 4th Amendment universally applies to all, even murderers.
Whether you consider it fair or not, a body found in a trunk of a car during an illegal warrantless search is subject to suppression, possibly freeing the murderer.
That's how the U.S. Constitution works.
And it does not work differently for "distracted drivers".
My concern though is not about the fate of distracted drivers, but about all drivers, because police officers habitually lie under oath to fabricate "probable cause" to stop a car and arrest the driver and everybody in the car, as well as to search everybody and everything in sight.
So, it is reasonable to predict that now, when everybody has cell phones, especially when driving, and every phone, smart or "dumb", has texting capabilities, a police officer will be able to stop without a probable cause ANY car at ANY time, claiming that he saw the driver texting or attempting to text. For an attempt you do not even need proof that a text was entered - the driver was simply attempting to do so, but did not complete his evil goal because the noble officer stopped him.
And, the police now can easily get any information on your cell phones in order to investigate you or charge you with crimes, without any warrants, by just claiming that they saw you look at that phone while driving - which is their word against yours, and guess who will win in court.
The bill is a rampant scrapping of the 4th Amendment for motorists altogether, as well as of their privacy, and as such, is blatantly unconstitutional.
So, do New Yorkers now have to videotape themselves, non-stop, to prove a negative against allegations of police officers, that they DID NOT text while drive?
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