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Indiana's Supreme Court has ruled that the Fifth Amendment allows a woman accused of stalking to refuse to unlock her iPhone. The court held that the Fifth Amendment's rule against self-incrimination protected Katelin Seo from giving the police access to potentially incriminating data on her phone.

The courts are divided on how to apply the Fifth Amendment in this kind of case. Earlier this year, a Philadelphia man was released from jail after four years of being held in contempt in connection with a child-pornography case. A federal appeals court rejected his argument that the Fifth Amendment gave him the right to refuse to unlock hard drives found in his possession. A Vermont federal court reached the same conclusion in 2009—as did a Colorado federal court in 2012, a Virginia state court in 2014, and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 2014.

But other courts in Florida, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania have reached the opposite conclusion, holding that forcing people to provide computer or smartphone passwords would violate the Fifth Amendment.

Enlarge / A T-Mobile logo at a store in New York on April 30, 2018. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)

T-Mobile is already trying to get out of merger conditions imposed by state regulators in California less than three months after completing its acquisition of Sprint.

T-Mobile yesterday filed a petition with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), asking the agency to provide two extra years to meet 5G build-out requirements and to eliminate a requirement to add 1,000 new employees. T-Mobile, which had agreed to other conditions imposed by the federal government, completed the Sprint merger on April 1 without waiting for California's approval. T-Mobile claimed the state has no jurisdiction over wireless transactions. CPUC, which says it does have jurisdiction, imposed conditions when it approved the merger on April 16.

T-Mobile's petition to CPUC could be a prelude to a lawsuit against California if the carrier doesn't get what it wants. On 5G, T-Mobile's petition targets a condition requiring average speeds of 300Mbps to 93 percent of California by the end of 2024. T-Mobile asked the CPUC for an extra two years to comply, saying it should have until the end of 2026. T-Mobile claims the 2024 date was a mistake "because the 2024 date was a proxy—used [by T-Mobile] at the beginning of the regulatory approval process in 2018—for the period ending six years after closing (which of course occurred in 2020)." Changing the deadline to 2026 would bring the condition "in line with the company's network model, which includes coverage projections for three- and six-year periods from close," T-Mobile said.

Enlarge / Giving someone a short test drive in a plug-in vehicle is the quickest way to get them to consider buying one. (credit: Monty Rakusen/Getty Images)

In 2016, the city of Columbus, Ohio, won a nationwide Department of Transportation challenge and was named America's first smart city. This contest was not just for bragging rights, like some kind of Mensa for municipalities; the award came with $40 million in DOT funding for testing better transportation policies, with an additional $10 million from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. As part of Smart Columbus' plans to make moving around more safely more sustainable, the foundation asked the city to increase adoption of battery electric cars and plug-in hybrids through an electrification program. And it succeeded.

The electrification program, which we wrote about last year, involved several different approaches to getting more local residents to switch to BEVs. The city assembled a fleet of 12 BEVs and PHEVs for a "ride and drive" roadshow, visiting communities and places of work to give people an opportunity to try out an EV—something that just under 12,000 people did over the course of two years.

The city created an experience center with a second fleet of test-drive plug-ins. This provided another 400 people with test drives from 2018 but also entertained more than 30,000 visitors from opening, educating them about alternative powertrains as well as shared mobility. On top of that, Smart Columbus conducted an online education campaign and worked with 35 area car dealerships, training staff so they could sell EVs. And finally, it worked with the local utility, AEP Ohio, to build out public level 2 and DC fast charging infrastructure in the region.