Cultivated Compendium

When we get arrested, do police have the right to search phones without a warrant, Reason's Damon Root asks. Do warrantless cell-phone searches constitute unreasonable searches and seizures?

While it is constitutionally permissible for police to search arrestees, their possessions and the immediate vicinity around the arrest site without a warrant, "cell phones contain previously unimaginable amounts of personal information, including not only words and images but also GPS location data. In other words, should getting arrested for a minor offense like jaywalking be sufficient to allow the police virtually unlimited access to your private affairs in search of additional wrongdoing?," Reason also asks.

The two cases the U.S. Supreme Court will hear are Riley v. California and United States v. Wurie.

A federal judge struck down an Arkansas law banning most abortions starting at 12 weeks of pregnancy, if a fetal heartbeat could be detected by standard ultrasound, as unconstitutional, Reuters reports: "U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright ruled that the law 'impermissibly infringes a woman's Fourteenth Amendment right to elect to terminate a pregnancy before viability' of the fetus, as established by the U.S. Supreme Court."

The decision lets stand the requirement that women seeking abortions must undergo ultrasounds to determine if fetal heartbeats are present, Reuters also reports.

A federal judge in Tennessee has issued a preliminary injunction against applying that state's ban on same-sex marriage to three couples married in other states that do recognize same-sex marriage, The Tennessean reports. U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger said the ban "fails to meet constitutional standards under even a minimal review," The Tennessean further reports.

A lawsuit also is planned to challenge the ban "regarding hose who married in other states and live here [in Tennessee, those who want to end those marriages but can’t obtain a divorce, and those denied typical probate proceedings because their spouses died," The Tennessean also reports.

Meanwhile, three news lawsuits have been filed to challenge Indiana's statutory ban on same-sex marriage, the Associated Press reports. One plaintiff had to pay $300,000 more in Indiana inheritance tax after her same-sex spouse died, the AP further reports.

Heather Sweetland, a retiring judge in Minnesota, wrote in an opinion piece for the Duluth News Tribune that diversity is important in the selection of new judges. Minnesota has a merit selection system in which a commission, appointed by the governor and the Minnesota Supreme Court, suggest a slate of candidates for the governor to choose new judges from.

Sweetland said diversity doesn't just mean gender and ethnicity, but diversity in practice experience: "It’s important to have a diverse judiciary. This is more than requesting applicants who are women or minorities. It includes having people on the bench with a wide variety of legal experience. Attorneys who have been in private practice are crucial additions to the bench. People who have served as public defenders, private-defense counsel or prosecutors are also important."

The implications of a decision by an administrative law judge that the Federal Aviation Administration can't impose a $10,000 fine for the commercial use of a small UAV, or drone, is overstated, C. Andrew Keisner, an attorney writing in TVNewser, says. The FAA will likely proceed to create binding rules for drones under the Administrative Procedure Act, and it is "risky for advertising & media companies engaging UAV operators to enter into any long-term contracts that assume the FAA will not proceed with making whatever binding rules it deems necessary to regulate UAVs," he says.

Even though journalist and activist Barrett Brown won't face charges of identity theft for sharing a link to hacked "records documenting improper and potentially illegal activities by the U.S. intelligence contractor, Stratfor Global Intelligence," his prosecution on other charges still threatens press freedom, the Electronic Frontier Foundation argues. Brown apparently shared the link to the Stratfor files with a team of other journalists to crowdsource the review of the records, EFF says.

Federal prosecutors may have decided to press charges against Brown because "Brown admitted to being a heroin user and threatened an FBI agent and his children in a semi-coherent video posted to YouTube. (This happened after the FBI charged Brown’s mother with obstruction of justice for failing to produce Brown’s laptop.) Brown still faces charges for this threat in a separate criminal case, as well as charges of obstruction of justice for concealing evidence. However, Brown’s arguable lapse of judgment does not excuse the government for bringing specious identity theft charges against him for the simple act of sharing a link," EFF further argues.

Brown's continued prosecution threatens press freedom because journalists may not pursue stories on government and corporate wrongdoing out of heh fear that they could be prosecuted for crimes based on newsgathering, EFF concludes.

The electronic health records industry is "gearing up for a Washington lobbying fight against federal safety regulations," the Boston Globe reports. The Obama administration is going to release plans in the coming months on how information technology in the health industry should be regulated. The issue is "whether the systems should be considered medical devices and, therefore, regulated by the Food and Drug Administration just as a cardiac stent or a pacemaker is regulated," the Globe also reports.

Some say that electronic health records, also known as digital medical records, can lead to prescribing errors or other errors in patient care that harm patients, the Globe further reports.

Oregon has passed a law to allow school districts to enter into agreements with American Indian tribes to use American Indian mascots and names. But the law is already being threatened by possible litigiation: "Sam Sachs, a racial-justice activist who also is a Portland Human Rights Commissioner, said the state Board of Education is obligated to create a safe environment for all Oregon children to learn free of discrimination and bullying. 'But this new law does not get there,' Sachs said of the bill, which will allow a district school board to enter into an approved written agreement with federally recognized American Indian tribes in Oregon to use a mascot that represents, is associated with, or is significant to the tribe," the Statesman Journal reports.

General Motors in the middle of a 1.6 million-strong recall involving faulty ignition switches. Now the carmaker says that it knew of faulty ignitiion switches back as early as 2001, which is three years earlier than previously reported, The Wall Street Journal reports. It's not just a recall that GM is facing: "GM's failure to act more quickly to remedy a defect that is now linked to accidents in which 12 people have lost their lives over the past decade has landed the company and new Chief Executive Mary Barra at the center of three different investigations—including a criminal probe," WSJ further reports.

Drug and medical-device companies are scaling back payments to doctors for promotional talks "as transparency increases and blockbuster drugs lose patent protection," ProPublica reports: "Eli Lilly and Co.’s payments to speakers dropped by 55 percent, from $47.9 million in 2011 to $21.6 million in 2012. Pfizer’s speaking payments fell 62 percent over the same period, from nearly $22 million to $8.3 million. And Novartis, the largest U.S. drug maker as measured by 2012 sales, spent 40 percent less on speakers that year than it did between October 2010 and September 2011, reducing payments from $24.8 million to $14.8 million."

The Physician Payment Sunshine Act, going to effect this year, is going to require all pharmaceutical and medical-device companies to publicly report payments to physicians, ProPublica reports.