( CNN ) -- On Wednesday , the U.S. Supreme Court issued its unanimous ruling in two cases testing the authority of police to conduct a warrantless search of an arrested person 's cell phone , holding that police generally must obtain a warrant before searching the cell phone of someone they arrest . For the most part , the justices ' rulings in cases dealing with the Fourth Amendment go largely unnoticed by the public , but the court has reminded us in this opinion that modern technology is subject to the same original privacy rights that flow from the Constitution . Most citizens are not interested in these cases the way they are in issues like same-sex marriage or gun control . On the whole , Americans do n't worry too much about search-and-seizure issues because they think these cases do n't apply to them . `` Those cases only apply to criminals . '' `` I 'm not planning on getting arrested . '' `` I have nothing to hide . '' The sentiment is understandable . Most of these cases involve application of the `` exclusionary rule '' to throw out evidence like guns or drugs , based on the way it was seized . But this does not mean that only criminal defendants have an interest here . The rest of us should pay attention for two reasons . First , most people do n't realize how easy it is for the police to arrest a person and seize his or her property . Second , our private information is no longer on a piece of paper in a safe . It 's in the form of data , and it 's on our person , or in that thing they call the `` cloud . '' If police can access your cell phone without a warrant , they can access your entire life . Do n't believe me ? What 's in your cell phone right now ? Is there anything you would n't want a stranger swiping through ? How about the apps on your phone ? Do you do any banking or other transactions on there ? Cell phones not only contain data -- they are now becoming a portal beyond the device itself , into a third-party world , whether that 's your health information , your finances , or anything else out there in the cloud . And if you 're like most people , you 're not immune to arrest . Police can potentially arrest you for minor infractions like littering , jaywalking , and traffic offenses . And just because they arrest you , should they be able to swipe through your pictures and text messages ? Police can search containers on your person without a warrant if they contain evidence that might be destroyed , or a potential weapon . Unless you can throw your iPhone like a ninja shuriken , it 's probably not much of a weapon . The two cases decided Wednesday by the Supreme Court involved somewhat different factual situations . In Riley v. California , the case involved a stop for a traffic violation , which led to David Riley 's arrest on weapons charges . An officer performed a `` search incident to arrest '' ( one conducted without a warrant ) and accessed information on a phone in Riley 's pocket . He saw on the phone the repeated use of gang terminology . A later search at the station of the phone 's digital contents led to Riley being charged in a gang shooting . The United States v. Wurie case involved an arrest after police observed Brima Wurie engage in a drug sale . As in Riley , the officers seized a cell phone and noticed on the screen that the phone was receiving multiple calls from `` my house . '' The officers opened the phone , traced the `` my house '' number to an apartment , obtained a search warrant and found drugs , a firearm and other bad stuff . In deciding these two appeals , the Supreme Court ruled that the police generally may not , absent a warrant , search digital information on a mobile phone seized from an arrestee . Officers may still examine the physical aspects of a cell phone to ensure that it will not be used as a weapon -- which is a definite possibility due to modern criminal ingenuity . But the Supreme Court has now announced that absent certain urgent circumstances , the actual data on a phone is never physically dangerous . You ca n't throw an emoji at anyone , or stab someone with a Snapchat . Citizens enjoy more substantial privacy interests when digital data is involved , says the court . The Supreme Court ruling in the Riley case says American jurisprudence has `` recognized that the Fourth Amendment was the founding generation 's response to the reviled 'general warrants ' and 'writs of assistance ' of the colonial era , which allowed British officers to rummage through homes in an unrestrained search for evidence of criminal activity . Opposition to such searches was in fact one of the driving forces behind the Revolution itself . ''
Supreme Court unanimously rules that cops ca n't search a cell phone without a warrant . Comment: He says phones can still be checked to make sure they 're not being used as weapons . Cevallos : Court affirms Fourth Amendment passed to limit ability of law enforcement to search .