SB1497

Article 18.0215(a) still says a peace officer may not search a person’s cellular telephone or other wireless communications device pursuant to a lawful arrest without a warrant under that article. The added sentence excludes from “wireless communications device”:

• A skimmer as defined by Business & Commerce Code Section 607.001: a wire or electronic device capable of unlawfully intercepting electronic communications or data to perpetrate fraud.
• A device manufactured for the purpose of illicitly obtaining payment-card information or identifying information.

The second category turns on the device’s manufactured purpose, not simply a suspicion that any ordinary device has been used in a crime. The bill changes only subsection (a); existing warrant procedures and the article’s separately stated exceptions are not rewritten. Final law; Skimmer definition; Existing warrant procedure and exceptions.

The introduced bill excluded only the defined skimmer. The Senate committee substitute added the manufactured-for-illicit-information category. That addition remained in the Senate-passed, House-committee and final versions. No floor amendments are listed. Introduced; Senate substitute; Senate-passed; House committee; Final law; Version index; Amendment index.

Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.

Investigators handling the specified fraud devices no longer face this article’s wireless-device warrant requirement for those devices. People whose devices fall within the exclusion lose that particular statutory protection; this is not a ruling that every search of such a device is lawful. The Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches is a separate constitutional constraint. This explanation does not determine whether a specific device or search qualifies. Final law; Fourth Amendment, official transcript.

The three fiscal notes anticipate no significant state or local fiscal implication, with state costs assumed absorbable within existing resources. The criminal-justice impact statement says the bill does not expressly create a felony, increase the specified felony punishments or change eligibility for felony community supervision, parole or mandatory supervision; it anticipates no significant effect on state correctional populations or resources. Those estimates do not establish a dollar saving or guarantee more fraud prosecutions. Introduced fiscal note; Substitute fiscal note; Later fiscal note; Criminal-justice impact statement.