It has been clearly established that the Charter
requires prior judicial authorization for the non-consensual interception of communications unless exigent circumstances exist, and this general rule logically extends to the surreptitious collection of data revealing the content of private communications.
As the respondent correctly points out, police may discover computers in a range of situations and it will not always be appropriate to require specific,
prior judicial authorization before they can search those devices.
Because sniffer - dog searches are conducted
without prior judicial authorization, the after - the - fact judicial scrutiny of the grounds for the alleged «reasonable suspicion» must be rigorous.
They then obtained from the Internet Service Provider (ISP), without
prior judicial authorization, the subscriber information associated with that IP address.
If the sniff is conducted on the basis of reasonable suspicion and discloses the presence of illegal drugs on the person or in a backpack or other place of concealment, the police may confirm the accuracy of that information with a physical search, again without
prior judicial authorization.
Here the police obtained ISP subscriber information associated with an IP address without
prior judicial authorization.
The accused, Santiago Wong, was charged with maintaining an illegal gambling operation, based on surveillance footage from a camera placed in his hotel room by police without
prior judicial authorization.