In this article it discusses how the California Gov. Jerry Brown recently vetoed a bill that would make it illegal for police officers to be able to obtain a person’s cell-phone while being arrested. The main reason that the bill was introduced is that many policy makers feel that the fourth amendment should protect people’s personal property when being arrested when there is no warrant during the arrest. Gov. Brown explained that the lack of the policy makers to not be able to clearly define the fourth amendment involving cell phones is the reason that he could not allow the bill to pass. The author explains that obtaining a cell phone in today’s wi-fi, wireless internet technological period allows law enforcement to gain access to peoples texts, emails, financial statements, and many other personal information cell phones are capable of possessing. This article, I believe, can fall under a few other theories, but I believe that because it is not an actual law that it would be difficult to view this article as being watchdog journalism. It does a better job of priming the reader, or more specifically, allowing them to think about what their personal views on the situation are. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/10/warrantless-phone-searches/
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I feel like many things about this article also can be considered media as guard dogs. This issue has the potential of harming many American citizens and abridging their privacy rights. If it wasn’t for the media informing the public that Gov. Brown vetoed this issue, most people would not even know about it. In this case, media are guard dogs because they inform the people when their rights are being abridged in an effort to protect the people. Personally I feel that searching people’s phones is a very serious infringement on privacy and should be not allowed unless a warrant is obtained.
I’m going to have to disagree about the media acting as watchdogs in this case. Watch dogs are supposed to guard against any entity or authority that would abuse its power. I don’t think a law would actually have to be broken for watch dogging to take place. The article made people more aware of their own rights and questioned whether the police had a right to access information on cell phones without a warrant. I think just in shedding light on the issue and facilitating a discussion on whether current law deals appropriately with developing technologies, like all the personal info phones can now carry, the media has served as a watch dog over civil rights.