Michigan Supreme Court slams police overreach in digital searches, demands stricter warrant limits
By isabelle // 2025-08-27
 
  • Michigan Supreme Court rules that police cannot use overly broad warrants to search smartphones, calling unrestricted digital searches constitutionally intolerable.
  • The court emphasizes that warrants must specify exactly what data is relevant to a crime, preventing exploratory rummaging through personal devices.
  • This decision aligns with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 ruling that smartphones contain the sum of an individual’s private life and require strict protections.
  • The ruling reinforces that vague warrants allowing access to any and all data violate the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement.
  • A victory for digital privacy, the decision limits law enforcement’s ability to treat personal devices as open books during investigations.
Imagine this: You’re pulled into a minor investigation—maybe a neighbor’s dispute or a misunderstanding—and suddenly, police have a warrant to rifle through everything on your phone. Not just texts related to the case, but your medical records, private photos, banking details, and years of personal messages. That’s exactly what happened to Michael Carson in Michigan, where authorities used an unrestricted warrant to download over 1,000 pages of his digital life—most of it irrelevant to their theft investigation. But this week, the Michigan Supreme Court put a stop to this Orwellian overreach, ruling that such broad searches violate the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. This isn’t just a win for Carson; it’s a victory for every American who carries a smartphone—a device that now holds what the U.S. Supreme Court has called “the sum of an individual’s private life.” The ruling in People v. Carson sends a clear message: Law enforcement can no longer treat your phone like a fishing net, dragging up everything in the hope of finding something incriminating. Instead, warrants must specify exactly what data they’re after and why it’s relevant to the crime. No more exploratory digs through your digital diary.

A warrant so broad it was ‘constitutionally intolerable’

The case began when Carson was investigated for allegedly stealing money from a neighbor’s safe. Police obtained a warrant to search his phone, but the document was staggeringly vague. It allowed access to “any and all data”—texts, photos, videos, contacts, documents—with no time limits or subject-matter restrictions. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) noted in its amicus brief, this gave officers carte blanche to comb through Carson’s entire digital existence, yielding a trove of irrelevant personal information. The Michigan Supreme Court’s four-justice majority didn’t mince words. In the lead opinion, Chief Justice Megan Cavanagh wrote that such “wide-ranging exploratory rummaging is constitutionally intolerable.” The court emphasized that the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement, which demands that warrants describe specifically what can be searched and seized, applies with even greater force to digital devices. Unlike a physical search of a wallet or a notepad, a phone contains years of intimate details: location histories, private conversations, financial records, and health data. Allowing police to sift through all of it without constraints, the justices ruled, turns a warrant into a “general warrant”—the very abuse the Fourth Amendment was designed to prevent.

Why this ruling matters for your privacy

This decision aligns with a growing national consensus that digital searches require stricter oversight. The U.S. Supreme Court recognized in 2014’s Riley v. California that smartphones are fundamentally different from physical containers like wallets or purses. They’re not just storage devices; they’re portals to our most sensitive information. Yet, as the EFF pointed out, many lower courts have still allowed overly broad warrants that give police unfettered access to everything on a device. The Michigan ruling changes that—at least in one state. Now, magistrates must ensure that warrants for phone searches include:
  • Clear limits on what data can be accessed (e.g., texts from a specific time period, not all messages).
  • A factual basis tying the requested data to the crime (no more fishing expeditions).
  • No blanket permissions to search “any and all” files, which the court called a violation of the Fourth Amendment’s core protections.
Without safeguards, a warrant for a minor offense could expose your entire life to government scrutiny—your political views, your relationships, and your medical history. This victory comes at a time when digital privacy is under siege. From warrantless border phone searches hitting record highs to the FBI’s push for backdoor access to encrypted devices, the government’s appetite for our data knows no bounds. The Michigan Supreme Court’s ruling won’t stop all intrusions, but it’s a rare check on law enforcement’s tendency to treat personal devices as open books. For Michael Carson, the win is bittersweet. While the court upheld his Fourth Amendment challenge, it rejected his claim of ineffective counsel, meaning his convictions still stand. But for the rest of us, the message is clear: Your phone isn’t a free-for-all for police. The Fourth Amendment still means something, even in the digital age. Sources for this article include: ReclaimTheNet.org EFF.org WEMU.org