Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Supremes strike down cop dramas

Everyone is ignoring the real victims of today's SCOTUS decision Riley v California: the writers of cop dramas.

As you know, TV shows use a sort of cyber ex machina. When the plot gets stuck at a certain point, writers pull some new cyber feature out of their ass, like "rerouting the encryptions".

In recent cop shows, that often meant searching cell phones. Perps always have phones on them, so all the cops have to do is look at the phone, and find the next clue on the trail to solving the crime. And it's always okay, because they already know who the good and bad guys are, and they only do this to bad guys.

Today's ruling makes searching cellphones unconstitutional. TV writers are going to have to find some other way to moving the plot forward. Otherwise, it'll let perps "get off on a technicality". TV writers will now need to come up with something creative and original to move the plot forward -- you know, the hard work of actually "writing".

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