Supreme Court To Decide If Police Can Search Suspects' Mobile Phones Without Warrant

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon be ruling on whether police can search through a potential suspects mobile phone without a warrant. Earlier this week the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in two cases testing the authority of police to conduct a warrantless search of an arrested person's cell phone.

One of the cases in question involves Brima Wurie, who has her Verizon LG phone searched after she was arrested on drug charges. While in custody her phone started ringing inside the police station, which is when cops decided to go through her pictures and text messages. Because of that, the police were able to locate a house where other drugs and firearms were found.

However, this raises a question regarding citizens Fourth Amendment rights: the amendment protects American citizens from unreasonable searches of their "persons, houses, papers and effects," though an exception is that cops can search suspects right after their arrest to find weapons and prevent the suspect from destroying evidence. Police are able to search through your wallet and other documents that you might have in your pockets, but the Supreme Court has to decide if mobile phones should be treated in the same fashion, though most devices contain sensitive data like bank inforamtion, private photos and more.

For the most part, the justices' rulings in cases dealing with the Fourth Amendment go largely unnoticed by the public. This is often because most citizens are not interested in these cases the way they are in issues like same-sex marriage or gun control. Americans often don't worry too much about search-and-seizure issues because they think these cases don't apply to them, until they do.

Arguably, the search of a persons iPhone or Android smartphone is even more invasive search of a person's papers, even when it doesn't occur in a home. Whether the paper in question is an actual crumpled sheet of paper or a modern tablet or smartphone, the spirit of the "papers" the Fourth Amendment sought to protect is the same, lets just hope the U.S. Supreme Court feels the same way.