Symposium: In Riley v. California, a unanimous Supreme Court sets out Fourth Amendment for digital age - SCOTUSblog (2025)

ByMarc Rotenberg and Alan Butler
on Jun 26, 2014 at 6:07 pm

The Court’s unanimous decision in the cellphone privacy cases brought the Fourth Amendment into the digital age. The opinion by the Chief Justice rests on a simple truth: “Cell phones differ in both a quantitative and a qualitative sense from other objects that might be kept on an arrestee’s person.” The outcome follows logically from the text of the Fourth Amendment: “get a warrant” before searching a cell phone seized after an arrest. But that is only the starting point. The Court’s opinion is Riley v. California signals a Court more prepared to engage in the challenges of the digital age ahead.

The Court’s conclusion that data is different will affect not only digital search cases, but also the NSA’s bulk record collection program, access to cloud-based data, and the third-party doctrine. If the sheer volume of sensitive data stored on cellphones makes them different in kind than physical notes or address books, the same can be said about laptops, tablets, and servers. The Second Circuit has already held that officers must delete seized data that is not within the scope of a search warrant, and the reasoning in Riley supports that conclusion.

The Court identified several quantitative differences that underscore the decision to afford cell phones and other “digital containers” greater Fourth Amendment protection than their physical analogs. First, the “immense storage capacity” of cellphones allows “millions of pages of text, thousands of pictures, or hundreds of videos” to be stored and transported. Second, cellphones facilitate the collection and aggregation “in one place of many distinct types of information,” as well as data dating back “to the purchase of the phone, or even earlier.” Chief Justice Roberts explained, “there is an element of pervasiveness that characterizes cell phones but not physical records.”

But it was not just the quantity of records at issue in Riley that justified increased Fourth Amendment protection, it was also a qualitative difference in the digital records created and stored on cell phones. This data includes “private information never found in a home in any form.” The Eleventh Circuit reached a similar conclusion when it held recently that cellphone location records are protected by the Fourth Amendment.

The Court also notes that cellphones are not only a repository of sensitive personal data, they are also a portal to private records stored on remote servers. The physical container analogy used by the Government to justify the search-incident-to-arrest rule “crumbles entirely when a cell phone is used to access data located elsewhere, at the tap of a screen.” And this problem is compounded by the fact that “[c]ell phone users often may not know whether particular information is stored on the device or in the cloud, and it generally makes little difference. See Brief for Electronic Privacy Information Center in No. 13-132, at 12-14, 20.”

The Court rejected outright the government’s proposal that agencies “‘develop protocols to address’ concerns raised by cloud computing.” The Chief Justice stated plainly that “the Founders did not fight a revolution to gain the right to government agency protocols.” No doubt that sentence will be quoted in the current challenges to the NSA’s bulk collection program, which the government has defended based on its own, self-imposed privacy safeguards.

The Court’s analysis of the qualitative differences with data implies (1) that files stored in the cloud are deserving of the same (if not more) protection than physical “papers and effects,” and (2) that certain types of information are deserving of special protection. This should not be surprising, since we have already given heightened protection to one special category of information: the contents of communications. But in Riley the Court also explicitly rejected the government’s argument that call logs and other “metadata” are not deserving of Fourth Amendment protection.

The Court’s argument takes clear aim at the third-party rule – that “non-content” records like call logs, location data, and other metadata held by third parties can be collected by the government without a warrant. Like the data stored on cell phones, metadata can reveal “an individual’s private interests and concerns … can also reveal where a person has been” and there is an “element of pervasiveness” in the collection of all metadata records about an individual. Citing Justice Sotomayor’s concurrence in United States v. Jones, the GPS tracking case from the October Term 2011, the Chief Justice wrote:

Althoughthe data stored on a cell phone is distinguished from physical recordsby quantity alone, certain types of data are also qualitativelydifferent. An Internet searchand browsing history, for example, can befound on an Internet-enabled phone and could reveal an individual’sprivate interests or concerns—perhaps a searchfor certainsymptoms of disease, coupled with frequent visits to WebMD.Data on a cell phone can also reveal where a person has been. Historiclocation information is a standardfeature on many smart phones and canreconstruct someone’s specific movements down to the minute, not onlyaround town but also within a particular building.

This does not bode well for the government in the continued litigation over the NSA’s surveillance of Americans. In defending the NSA’s massive collection of the telephone records of all Americans, the government has argued that the collection of this metadata is “materially indistinguishable” from the collection of a single telephone number permitted by the Court in Smith v. Maryland, a case decided in the era of the rotary dial phone. Addressing the government’s claim that there is little difference between the search of cellphone data and the physical search the Court had previously allowed following an arrest, Roberts said, “That is like saying a ride on horseback is materially indistinguishable from a flight to the moon. Both are ways of getting from point A to point B, but little else justifies lumping them together.”

The Smith issue was not squarely presented because the government did not argue in either case that a search had not occurred. But Roberts did point to the distinguishing facts when that case is squarely presented: “Moreover, call logs typically contain more thanjustphone numbers; they include any identifying information that anindividual might add, such as the label ‘my house’ in Wurie’s case.” A brief field trip to Bluffdale, Utah, the home of the NSA’s new massive computing facility, will no doubt reveal that we are long past the era of horseback and also the rotary phone.

The Riley decision also points to a reconceptualization of searches in the digital age that may move the home from the center of the Fourth Amendment universe. As the Court explained, “Indeed, a cell phone search would typically expose to the government far more than the most exhaustive search of a house: A phone not only contains in digital form many sensitive records previously found in the home; it also contains a broad array of private information never found in a home in any form unless the phone is.” Justice Kagan hinted at this result in her concurrence in Florida v Jardines, the dog sniff case from last Term. Joined by Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor, Kagan imagined the search of a home from the front door using high-powered binoculars. The violation of privacy described is both the trespass on private property and the invasion of a reasonable expectation of privacy. And once the records of the home are digitized, uploaded, and stored on a small device that everyone carries, it is the person’s data and not the person’s domicile that may be paramount.

There is also in the Court’s Riley opinion a subtle but significant shout-out to Justice Brandeis and his famous dissent in Olmstead, the 1928 wiretap act. In that case, Brandeis rejected the Court’s limited application of the Fourth Amendment, which found no warrant requirement for the interception of telephone communication. Brandeis argued that the Constitution must be adapted to the demand of the modern age, suggesting that “[t]he progress of science infurnishing the Government with means of espionage is not likely to stopwith wiretapping.” It was not just the tapping of the telephone that concerned Justice Brandeis. He also anticipated many of the modern investigative techniques, such as the phony cellphone towers known as “Stingray” and the government’s surreptitious access to private files stored on remote cloud servers. “Ways maysomeday be developed by which the Government, withoutremoving papersfrom secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it willbe enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of thehome.”

Chief Justice Roberts paid homage to Brandeis in Riley with this excerpt, discussed in the 1886 opinion Boyd v. United States:

Ourcases have recognized that the Fourth Amendment was the foundinggeneration’s response to the reviled “general warrants” and “writs ofassistance” of the colonialera, which allowed British officers torummage through homes in an unrestrained search for evidence of criminalactivity. Opposition to such searches was in fact one ofthe drivingforces behind the Revolution itself. In 1761, the patriot James Otisdelivered a speech in Boston denouncing the use of writs of assistance. Ayoung JohnAdams was there, and he would later write that “[e]very manof a crowded audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to takearms against writs of assistance.”

Brandeis revered the Boyd decision, which held that a government subpoena for private business records violated both the Fourth and Fifth Amendment. He wrote in the Olmstead dissent that Boyd “will be remembered as long as civil liberty lives inthe United States.”

It is no small matter that the Chief Justice pulled this reference from the Olmstead dissent. In words that also echoed the Olmstead dissent, Roberts concluded for a unanimous Court in Riley, “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.”


[1] Marc Rotenberg is President of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in Washington, DC. He teaches Information Privacy Law at Georgetown University Law Center. He has authored more than fifty amicus briefs on emerging privacy issues for federal and state courts. Alan Butler is EPIC Appellate Advocacy Counsel. Rotenberg and Butler co-authored the amicus brief for EPIC in Riley v. California.

Recommended Citation: Marc Rotenberg and Alan Butler , Symposium: In Riley v. California, a unanimous Supreme Court sets out Fourth Amendment for digital age, SCOTUSblog (Jun. 26, 2014, 6:07 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2014/06/symposium-in-riley-v-california-a-unanimous-supreme-court-sets-out-fourth-amendment-for-digital-age/

Symposium: In Riley v. California, a unanimous Supreme Court sets out Fourth Amendment for digital age - SCOTUSblog (2025)

FAQs

What was the significance of the Riley v California case? ›

That ruling served as confirmation of the notion that police may search a suspect, and the area immediately surrounding that person, without a warrant during a lawful arrest in accordance with the search incident to arrest doctrine.

What was the vote in the Supreme Court case Riley v California? ›

Holding: The police generally may not, without a warrant, search digital information on a cellphone seized from an individual who has been arrested. Judgment: Reversed and remanded, 9-0, in an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts on June 25, 2014.

What court case involving the 4th Amendment and technology? ›

In the case of Riley v. United States (2014), the Supreme Court unanimously decided that digital data seized from warrantless search of cell phones violated the Fourth Amendment, and could not be admitted as evidence in trial.

What happened to David Leon Riley? ›

As far as rulings go, the one in Riley v. California was a game changer – for nearly everyone but the man at the center of the case. Despite the high court opinion in his favor, David Leon Riley was ultimately ordered to remain in prison to serve out his sentence of 15 years to life. Such outcomes aren't all that rare.

What rule resulted from the Riley v California case click? ›

Outcome. The Supreme Court held in a unanimous decision by Chief Justice Roberts, that police generally require a warrant in order to search cell phones, even when it occurs during an otherwise lawful arrest.

What did the Supreme Court conclude in the case Riley v California quizlet? ›

In the 2014 case Riley v. California, the Supreme Court held that warrants are required to search smartphones seized on arrest. This is because no imminent danger to the police or potential for destruction of evidence exists that would require a faster search.

What was the sentence for Riley v. California? ›

The jury convicted Riley on all three counts and sentenced to fifteen years to life in prison. The California Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division 1, affirmed.

What was the significance of the verdict in the Supreme Court case of Brown v Board of Education of Topeka Kansas? ›

In this milestone decision, the Supreme Court ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional. It signaled the end of legalized racial segregation in the schools of the United States, overruling the "separate but equal" principle set forth in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case.

What are the 4th Amendment rights in California? ›

Searches Without a Warrant in California

Courts ruling on Fourth Amendment issues have found that any search or seizure by police without a warrant is unreasonable and therefore unlawful, except in rare circumstances.

What case created the 4th Amendment? ›

This Fourth Amendment activity is based on the landmark Supreme Court case Brendlin v. California, dealing with search and seizure during a traffic stop.

What is the Supreme Court's understanding of the Fourth Amendment? ›

The Constitution, through the Fourth Amendment, protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. The Fourth Amendment, however, is not a guarantee against all searches and seizures, but only those that are deemed unreasonable under the law.

Why is Riley v. California important? ›

On June 25, in Riley v. California, a unanimous Supreme Court held that a police officer could not review the content of a cell phone incident to an arrest absent a search warrant or exigent circumstances.

Can police confiscate your phone in California? ›

Most often, yes due to the search incident to arrest (SITA) doctrine. The police can generally seize your phone after they legally arrest you. They can also do so without a warrant.

What happened to Riley Patterson? ›

On Tuesday, the Jacksonville Jaguars waived kicker Riley Patterson. When that happened, most of the Detroit Lions fandom took notice. The Lions had to recently place Michael Badgley on injured reserve, and Patterson had spent time on and off the Lions' roster every year since 2021.

What was the significance of the Florida v Riley case? ›

Riley, 488 U.S. 445 (1989), was a United States Supreme Court decision which held that police officials do not need a warrant to observe an individual's property from public airspace.

What was the significance of the outcome of the Supreme Court case of District of Columbia v Heller? ›

District of Columbia v Heller is perhaps the most important United States Supreme Court case relating to gun rights and the Second Amendment. The case established the individual right to possess firearms for self-defense in the home. To get insights on the case, we speak with Prof.

What is the significance of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Salinas v Texas? ›

Summary. The Supreme Court has held that the right to remain silent means that the prosecution may not comment on a defendant's failure to take the witness stand, or to answer questions after Miranda warnings have been administered.

What was the significance of the Abrams v United States case? ›

In Abrams v. United States (1919), the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of several individuals for the distribution of leaflets advocating their political views. This case is best remembered for the dissent written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. advancing the concept of a free marketplace of ideas.

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