Supreme Court demands police get a warrant to search phones

In the unanimous, 38-page opinion which the Supreme Court handed down Wednesday, the Supreme Court has ruled that the police must get a warrant to search your cell phone.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr wrote: "The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought. Our answer to the question of what police must do before searching a cell phone seized incident to an arrest is accordingly simple—get a warrant."

Roberts acknowledged just how much info is on cell phones these days. Rather than being "just another technological convenience," cell phones are also our cameras, video players, Rolodexes, calendars, tape recorders, libraries, diaries, albums, televisions, maps, and newspapers.

He wrote: "Indeed, a cell phone search would typically expose to the government far more than the most exhaustive search of a house."