Growing police power has gravely distorted interactions between cops and citizens. Officers arrive with not just a gun and body armor but with wide-ranging legal immunities and both the privilege and training to lie to you during questioning.
Now they want to force you to unlock your phone.
The amount of personal data we keep on our smartphones is almost immeasurable, a reality the Supreme Court recognized in 2014 when it ruled that police must comply with the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement to search your device. But your phone has a simpler safeguard: a password that, under the Fifth Amendment, you shouldn’t have to reveal unless the government overcomes your right against self-incrimination.
It’s a right with deep roots, dating back to fourth-century Christian thinker St. John Chrysostom, who argued that no one should be required to confess their sins in public because it would discourage people from confessing at all.
