03/02/2020 Riley v. California, 134 S. Ct. 2473 - Supreme Court 2014 - Google Scholar circumstances exception requires a court to examine whether an emergency justified a warrantless search in each particular case. See McNeely, supra, at ___, 133 S.Ct., at 1559.[2] *** Our cases have 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. In 1761, the patriot James Otis delivered a speech in Boston denouncing the use of writs of assistance. A young John Adams was there, and he would later write that "[e]very man of a crowded audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to take arms against writs of assistance." 10 Works of John Adams 247-248 (C. Adams ed. 1856). According to Adams, Otis's speech was "the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the child Independence was born." Id., at 248 (quoted in Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 625, 6 S.Ct. 524, 29 L.Ed. 746 (1886)). Modern cell phones are not just another technological convenience. With all they contain and all they may reveal, they 2495 hold *2495 for many Americans "the privacies of life," Boyd, supra, at 630, 6 S.Ct. 524. The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought. Our answer to the question of what police must do before searching a cell phone seized incident to an arrest is accordingly simple — get a warrant. We reverse the judgment of the California Court of Appeal in No. 13-132 and remand the case for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. We affirm the judgment of the First Circuit in No. 13-212. It is so ordered. Justice ALITO, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. I agree with the Court that law enforcement officers, in conducting a lawful search incident to arrest, must generally obtain a warrant before searching information stored or accessible on a cell phone. I write separately to address two points. I A First, I am not convinced at this time that the ancient rule on searches incident to arrest is based exclusively (or even primarily) on the need to protect the safety of arresting officers and the need to prevent the destruction of evidence. Cf. ante, at 2484. This rule antedates the adoption of the Fourth Amendment by at least a century. See T. Clancy, The Fourth Amendment: Its History and Interpretation 340 (2008); T. Taylor, Two Studies in Constitutional Interpretation 28 (1969); Amar, Fourth Amendment First Principles, 107 Harv. L. Rev. 757, 764 (1994). In Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 392, 34 S.Ct. 341, 58 L.Ed. 652 (1914), we held that the Fourth Amendment did not disturb this rule. See also Taylor, supra, at 45; Stuntz, The Substantive Origins of Criminal Procedure, 105 Yale L.J. 393, 401 (1995) ("The power to search incident to arrest — a search of the arrested suspect's person ... — was well established in the mid-eighteenth century, and nothing in ... the Fourth Amendment changed that"). And neither in Weeks nor in any of the authorities discussing the old common-law rule have I found any suggestion that it was based exclusively or primarily on the need to protect arresting officers or to prevent the destruction of evidence. On the contrary, when pre-Weeks authorities discussed the basis for the rule, what was mentioned was the need to obtain probative evidence. For example, an 1839 case stated that "it is clear, and beyond doubt, that ... constables ... are entitled, upon a lawful arrest by them of one charged with treason or felony, to take and detain property found in his possession which will form material evidence in his prosecution for that crime." See Dillon v. O'Brien, 16 Cox Crim. Cas. 245, 249-251 (1887) (citing Regina, v. Frost, 9 Car. & P. 129, 173 Eng. Rep. 771). The court noted that the origins of that rule "deriv[e] from the interest which the State has in a person guilty (or reasonably believed to be guilty) of a crime being brought to justice, and in a prosecution, once commenced, being determined in due course of law." 16 Cox Crim. Cas., at 249-250. See also Holker v. Hennessey, 141 Mo. 527, 537-540, 42 S.W. 1090, 1093 (1897). https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=9647156672357738355&q=riley+v.+california&hl=en&as_sdt=2006 11/13