Do we need digital Miranda rights?

Starting in 2014, police officers were told not to go through a phone without a warrant.

(Image credit: iStock)

published 29 December 2016

The Miranda warning is familiar to any American who has taken a high school civics class or watched an episode of any police procedural show. We know we have the right to remain silent — but what about our cell phones?

Since Miranda v. Arizona (1966), the Supreme Court case that established the basic caution against self-incrimination, technological advances mean the phones we all carry can offer far more damning evidence than much of what we might say. To adapt to that new legal reality, Cyrus Farivar at Ars Technica has proposed a "digital Miranda warning" crafted with the help of legal experts:

You have the right to remain silent. This right includes declining to provide information that does not require speaking, such as entering a passcode to unlock a digital device, like a smartphone. Anything that you say or do can be used against you. Any data retrieved from your device can also be used against you. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be provided to you. Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you? [Ars Technica]

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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