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Pros And Cons Of Warrantless Search

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The side of this debate that supports less strict criteria for warrantless search of the digital information of cell phones is law enforcement, which is made up of various entities that track American citizen’s data to keep the country safe. Government lawyers and supports of warrantless cell phone searches argue that “searching a cell phone is no different than search other items commonly found on a person at the time of arrest.” In addition, they point out that prohibiting these searches would hurt prosecutors’ chances of proving guilt in drug trafficking cases because of the widespread use of cell phones by drug dealers in order to move their products. At surface level it seems that the Court has just required police to get warrants before checking cell phones, but the ruling could lead to questions about the NSA’s capacity to conduct warrantless search on American’s data. Government institutions, primarily the NSA, have used “section 215 of the Patriot Act” to analyze American’s phone data, but this ruling could show that the Court is attempting to better protect the Fourth Amendment rights of citizens by stopping …show more content…

In Riley v. California the Supreme Court unanimously decided to apply this right to cell phone data because the information provided by this data is “worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought.” The language of Chief Justice seems to say that the Supreme Court will protect the personal data of United States citizens, which means that some government programs could become heavily restricted or banned in the future. The Supreme Court must continue to fight for citizen’s Fourth Amendment rights and will have the opportunity to do so when future government surveillance cases come to the

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