Fourth Amendment Protection for Cell Phones

On Wednesday, June 25, 2014, the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled that cellular phones are protected by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.  This ruling thus requires that police must obtain a search warrant before searching a cell phone incident to an arrest.  The Court rationalized that today’s cell phones\smart phones are more akin to personal computers which also happen to have the capacity to be used as a telephone.  This means that the tremendous amount of personal information contained in one’s cell phone is now protected against unreasonable searches and seizure, similar to one’s person or house.