On Wednesday, the US Supreme Court had showed their stance on digital age privacy when the justices unanimously ruled that authorities would need to have a warrant before searching an individual's phone following his arrest, The Associated Press reported.
According to Chief Justice John Roberts, mobile phones are now recognized as powerful devices as they carry tons of information. Roberts stressed the importance of police securing warrants prior to checking people's phones. The court, however, chose not to extend earlier rulings that allow police to empty the pockets of a suspect to examine whatever they could find for police and evidence safety purposes.
He said, "Modern cellphones are not just another technological convenience. With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans the privacies of life."
The state of California and the Obama administration have since defended the searches, insisting that mobile phones should have have more legal protections than anything else police would be able to find. However, the defendants in such cases, who have been backed by civil libertarians, librarians and news media groups, has likened the smartphones as powerful computers that contain troves of sensitive information. One of the defendants owned a smartphone, while the other has a flip phone at the time of arrest.
David Leon Riley, who owned the Samsung smartphone, has been seeking to deem the videos and photographs from his phone used as evidence to convict him in lower courts inadmissible. In Brima Wurie's case, police checked the suspect's call logs on his flip phone to determine his place of residence, where they have found crack, marijuana, a gun and ammunition. Police conducted a search on Wurie's home with a warrant, AP noted.
Roberts insisted that there is no need to differentiate as it was not an issue. He added, "(A ride on horseback and a flight to the moon both) are ways of getting from point A to point B, but little else justifies lumping them together."
