This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, June 25, 2014.

I'm Caleb Brown.

In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court has said that the police need a warrant to search the

digital contents of your cell phone. The Cato Institute filed briefs in the pair of

cases decided at the High Court today. Cato Supreme Court review editor Ilia Shapiro comments on today's ruling.

What did the Supreme Court say here?

Nine to nothing seems fairly decisive,

but what's in the weeds there?

That's the surprise here. Most people expected the

government to lose at least on the broad point that the police can search all of

your cell phone information when they arrest you.

And typically when there's a broad opinion, it's a splintered court.

When it's a unanimous opinion, it's a pretty narrow ruling.

Here, we have a very clear signal that says police cannot search the

digital information stored on cell phones of people they arrest without a

warrant full stop.

That's pretty big and it's very clear it will certainly have huge ramifications in terms of police procedures.

I'm not sure it will ultimately harm law enforcement that much because if indeed the police have probable cause to believe that there's evidence of criminality on the phone, they can get that warrant.

It's not like the phone is about to explode.

And indeed, if the police have information

that the phone is about to explode, then they can search it.

I guess what was the key argument here? The government made several claims that for

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