© Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press
Confronting a right-to-privacy question in the new world of smartphones, the Supreme Court justices sounded closely split Tuesday on whether police officers should be free to search through the phone of any person who is arrested.
Justice Elena Kagan, the newest and youngest member of the high court, urged her colleagues to insist on protecting privacy.
"People carry their entire lives on their cellphone," she said during the argument involving a San Diego case. If there are no limits, a police officer could stop a motorist for not having seat belt buckled and download a huge amount of information, looking for some evidence of wrongdoing, she warned.
Such a search could include "every single email, all their bank records, all their medical records," she said, as well as GPS data that would show everywhere they had traveled recently.
But Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. pressed the opposite view. Police who make an arrest have always been permitted to check a wallet, a billfold or a purse, and that might include personal photos.