Justice Scalia set to play key role in Supreme Court smartphone case

Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court's new champion of the 4th Amendment, is likely to play a crucial role when the court hears this year's most important search case: whether the police may routinely examine the digital contents of a cellphone confiscated during an arrest.

Civil libertarians say the stakes are high because arrests are so common -- 13.1 million were made in 2010, according to the FBI -- and smartphones hold so much private information. Under current law, officers may search a person under arrest, checking pockets and looking through a wallet or purse. The question is whether a smartphone carried by the person is also fair game. "It's all of your personal information," said Norman Reimer, executive director of the National Assn. of Criminal Defense Lawyers, which opposes giving police such powers. "It's an incredible exposure of your privacy." In the past, defense lawyers did not look first to the conservative Justice Scalia as an ally. But in recent years, he has insisted on forbidding the kinds of "unreasonable searches" that he says would have troubled the framers of the Constitution.