In January, a California lawmaker introduced legislation, backed by school administrators, that would give K-12 school administrators broad powers to search the phones and electronic devices of their students without a warrant.

On Wednesday, AB165 met its death, at least for now, after intense lobbying by more than 60 groups (PDF), including everyone from the American Civil Liberties Union to the California Newspaper Publishers Association.

The measure was crafted by the Association of California School Administrators and introduced by Assemblyman Jim Cooper, a Democrat representing Elk Grove (just south of Sacramento). Laura Preston, a lobbyist for the Association of California School Administrators, told Ars that opposition to the measure was "crazy" and akin to starting a "World War."

The bill was proposed in a bid to bolster student safety and investigate cyberbullying and other events, she said. It comes as some studies suggest that more than half of US students have a mobile device. There are more than six million public school students in California alone.

"We need time to put in guard rails to make people feel better," Preston said, discussing why the proposal is being tabled for the time being.

California may be considered the land of the liberals, but sometimes its legislators float not-so-liberal laws akin to this warrantless search bill. Two weeks ago, opposition killed a proposed law outlawing "fake news" for instance.

Willy-nilly searches

Preston said Silicon Valley was concerned tech companies might be forced to decrypt students' phones. Other opponents thought the data on the phones might be used to deport students or their families.

"Administrators don't want to go willy-nilly looking at kids' phones but sometimes we have to," she said. She added that students are becoming wiser to the current law and are not turning over phones when asked by school administrators. "Kids are saying you can't make me do it. They're finding out about the law."

The on-the-books law Preston referenced was California's landmark privacy measure, the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 2015. If AB165 was approved, the 2015 law wouldn't apply to students at school. The 2015 law essentially requires the authorities to get a warrant to search or track an electronic device. It's legislation that clarified US Supreme Court precedent.

Nicole Ozer, an ACLU of Northern California attorney, told Ars the newly proposed legislation was unwarranted.

"This bill was both unnecessary and it was really bad for kids and families," she said. "It would have opened up these millions of students to invasive searches. There would have been no outside oversight, and no notice to parents and to students about the searches. There would be no safeguards of what was searched, how it was used, and how it was shared."