1. U.S. justices: ’Get a warrant’ to search cellphones
WASHINGTON (AP) — A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in an emphatic defense of privacy in the digital age that police generally may not search the cellphones of people they arrest without first getting search warrants.
Cellphones are unlike anything else police may find on someone they arrest, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court.
They are “not just another technological convenience,” he said, but ubiquitous, increasingly powerful computers that contain vast quantities of personal, sensitive information.
“With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans the privacies of life,” Roberts declared.
So the message to police about what they should do before rummaging through a cellphone’s contents following an arrest is simple: “Get a warrant.”
He acknowledged that barring searches would affect law enforcement, but he said: “Privacy comes at a cost.”
By ruling as it did, the U.S. court chose not to extend earlier decisions from the 1970s — when cellphone technology was not yet available — that allow police to empty a suspect’s pockets and examine whatever they find to ensure officers’ safety and prevent the destruction of evidence.
2. Kerry issues warning after Syria bombs Iraq
BAGHDAD (AP) — Syrian warplanes bombed Sunni militants’ positions inside Iraq, military officials confirmed Wednesday, deepening the concerns that the extremist insurgency that spans the two neighboring countries could morph into an even wider regional conflict.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned against the threat and said other nations should stay out.
“We’ve made it clear to everyone in the region that we don’t need anything to take place that might exacerbate the sectarian divisions that are already at a heightened level of tension,” Kerry said, speaking in Brussels at a meeting of diplomats from NATO nations.
Meanwhile, a new insurgent artillery offensive against Christian villages in the north of Iraq sent thousands of Christians fleeing from their homes, seeking sanctuary in Kurdish-controlled territory, Associated Press reporters who witnessed the scene said.
The U.S. government and a senior Iraqi military official confirmed that Syrian warplanes bombed militants’ positions Tuesday in and near the border crossing in the town of Qaim. Iraq’s other neighbors — Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Turkey — were all bolstering flights just inside their airspace to monitor the situation, said the Iraqi official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
American officials said the target was the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the Sunni extremist group that has seized large swathes of Iraq and seeks to carve out a purist Islamic enclave across both sides of the Syria-Iraq border.
3. Beyond cure? Europe euthanasia rulings sear debate
PARIS (AP) — One French court acquitted a doctor of poisoning seven terminally ill patients, another ordered physicians to suspend treatment for a comatose man and Britain’s top court said the country’s ban on assisted suicide may be incompatible with human rights.
The decisions of the past few days are fueling the arguments of Europeans who say the duty of doctors is to end the suffering of those beyond treatment.
But emotions run high on all sides around the issue of euthanasia and assisted suicide, as is shown by the bitter case of the comatose Frenchman, Vincent Lambert. Hours after the French court sided with his wife in ordering an end to treatment, the European Court of Human Rights blocked the move at the request of his parents, in a rare late-night ruling.
The prosecution in France of Dr. Nicolas Bonnemaison was relatively unusual. The physician never denied giving seven terminally ill patients lethal injections, and some of their families testified on his behalf.
Bonnemaison’s lawyer said he hoped Wednesday’s acquittal — and Tuesday’s ruling in the case of Lambert — would force the government to update the law quickly.
Euthanasia is currently legal in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg for patients whose suffering is “unbearable.” France’s president has said he wants to make it easier for some terminally ill patients to request medical help to end their lives in the majority-Catholic country.
4. GOP establishment hails Cochran, unusual alliance
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — From Mississippi to the U.S. Capitol, mainstream Republicans expressed relief Wednesday at Sen. Thad Cochran’s comeback primary victory over tea party challenger Chris McDaniel, highlighting anew the fissures between traditional GOP powers and challengers determined to pull the party further rightward.
McDaniel, meanwhile, complained that a number of Democrats — most of whom are black in Mississippi — apparently cast ballots in the GOP runoff and boosted Cochran’s numbers. McDaniel refused to concede the race and said he would probe “irregularities” in Tuesday’s voting.
His insistence that Democrats voting in his party’s primary was a bad thing made some mainstream Republicans cringe.
“I’m for more people voting, not less people voting,” Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul told reporters in the Capitol in Washington.
Cochran’s victory, they said, allows the GOP to continue its push to win a Senate majority in November without worrying whether McDaniel, a 41-year-old state senator, will join Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in a conservative faction that often frustrates operations of the Senate.
5. Ruling could help US become major oil exporter
NEW YORK (AP) — Companies are taking advantage of new ways to export oil from the U.S. despite government restrictions, and in the process, helping the U.S. become an ever bigger exporter of petroleum on the world stage.
The Obama administration has opened the door to more exports — without changing policy — by allowing some light oils to be defined as petroleum products like gasoline or diesel, which are not subject to export restrictions.
Although U.S. production has boomed in recent years, the nation still consumes far more crude oil than it produces and remains heavily dependent on imports.
Economists generally agree that lifting the restrictions would benefit the U.S. economy.
“Add it all up and you get to 1.1 million barrels of potential exports of crude out of the U.S. without changing the law, without changing the system,” said Ed Morse, head of commodities research at Citigroup.
That would make the U.S. a major oil exporter and add to its growing volume of fuel exports.
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