Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014) (2025)

NOTICE: This opinion is subject toformal revision before publication in the preliminary print of theUnited States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporterof Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington,D.C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, inorder that corrections may be made before the preliminary printgoes to press.SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES_________________Nos. 13–132 and 13–212_________________DAVID LEON RILEY, PETITIONER13–132 v.CALIFORNIAon writ of certiorari to the court of appealof cali-fornia, fourth appellate district, division oneUNITED STATES, PETITIONER13–212 v.BRIMA WURIEon writ of certiorari to the united statescourt of appeals for the first circuit[June 25, 2014] Chief Justice Robertsdelivered the opinion of the Court. These two cases raise acommon question: whether the police may, without a warrant, searchdigital information on a cell phone seized from an individual whohas been arrested.IA In the first case,petitioner David Riley was stopped by a police officer for drivingwith expired registration tags. In the course of the stop, theofficer also learned that Riley’s license had been suspended. Theofficer impounded Riley’s car, pursuant to department policy, andanother officer conducted an inventory search of the car. Riley wasarrested for possession of concealed and loaded firearms when thatsearch turned up two handguns under the car’s hood. See Cal. PenalCode Ann. §§12025(a)(1), 12031(a)(1) (West 2009). An officer searchedRiley incident to the arrest and found items associated with the“Bloods” street gang. He also seized a cell phone from Riley’spants pocket. According to Riley’s uncontradicted assertion, thephone was a “smart phone,” a cell phone with a broad range of otherfunctions based on advanced computing capability, large storagecapacity, and Internet connectivity. The officer accessedinformation on the phone and noticed that some words (presumably intext messages or a contacts list) were preceded by the letters“CK”—a label that, he believed, stood for “Crip Killers,” a slangterm for members of the Bloods gang. At the police stationabout two hours after the arrest, a detective specializing in gangsfurther examined the contents of the phone. The detective testifiedthat he “went through” Riley’s phone “looking for evidence, because... gang members will often video themselves with gunsor take pictures of themselves with the guns.” App. in No. 13–132,p. 20. Although there was “a lot of stuff” on the phone, particularfiles that “caught [the detective’s] eye” included videos of youngmen sparring while someone yelled encouragement using the moniker“Blood.” Id., at 11–13. The police also found photographs of Rileystanding in front of a car they suspected had been involved in ashooting a few weeks earlier. Riley was ultimatelycharged, in connection with that earlier shooting, with firing atan occupied vehicle, assault with a semiautomatic firearm, andattempted murder. The State alleged that Riley had committed thosecrimes for the benefit of a criminal street gang, an aggravatingfactor that carries an enhanced sentence. Compare Cal. Penal CodeAnn. §246 (2008) with §186.22(b)(4)(B) (2014). Prior to trial,Riley moved to suppress all evidence that the police had obtainedfrom his cell phone. He contended that the searches of his phoneviolated the Fourth Amendment, because they had been performedwithout a warrant and were not otherwise justified by exigentcircumstances. The trial court rejected that argument. App. in No.13–132, at 24, 26. At Riley’s trial, police officers testifiedabout the photographs and videos found on the phone, and some ofthe photographs were admitted into evidence. Riley was convicted onall three counts and received an enhanced sentence of 15 years tolife in prison. The California Court ofAppeal affirmed. No. D059840 (Cal. App., Feb. 8, 2013), App. toPet. for Cert. in No. 13–132, pp. 1a–23a. The court relied on theCalifornia Supreme Court’s decision in People v. Diaz, 51 Cal. 4th84, 244 P. 3d 501 (2011), which held that the Fourth Amendmentpermits a warrantless search of cell phone data incident to anarrest, so long as the cell phone was immediately associated withthe arrestee’s person. See id., at 93, 244 P. 3d, at 505–506. The California SupremeCourt denied Riley’s petition for review, App. to Pet. for Cert. inNo. 13–132, at 24a, and we granted certiorari, 571 U.S. ___(2014).B In the second case, apolice officer performing routine surveillance observed respondentBrima Wurie make an apparent drug sale from a car. Officerssubsequently arrested Wurie and took him to the police station. Atthe station, the officers seized two cell phones from Wurie’sperson. The one at issue here was a “flip phone,” a kind of phonethat is flipped open for use and that generally has a smaller rangeof features than a smart phone. Five to ten minutes after arrivingat the station, the officers noticed that the phone was repeatedlyreceiving calls from a source identified as “my house” on thephone’s external screen. A few minutes later, they opened the phoneand saw a photograph of a woman and a baby set as the phone’swallpaper. They pressed one button on the phone to access its calllog, then another button to determine the phone number associatedwith the “my house” label. They next used an online phone directoryto trace that phone number to an apartment building. When the officers wentto the building, they saw Wurie’s name on a mailbox and observedthrough a window a woman who resembled the woman in the photographon Wurie’s phone. They secured the apartment while obtaining asearch warrant and, upon later executing the warrant, found andseized 215 grams of crack cocaine, mari-juana, drug paraphernalia,a firearm and ammunition, and cash. Wurie was charged withdistributing crack cocaine, possessing crack cocaine with intent todistribute, and being a felon in possession of a firearm andammunition. See 18 U.S.C. §922(g); 21U.S.C. §841(a). He moved to suppress the evidenceobtained from the search of the apartment, arguing that it was thefruit of an unconstitutional search of his cell phone. The DistrictCourt denied the motion. 612 F.Supp. 2d 104 (Mass. 2009).Wurie was convicted on all three counts and sentenced to 262 monthsin prison. A divided panel of theFirst Circuit reversed the denial of Wurie’s motion to suppress andvacated Wurie’s convictions for possession with intent todistribute and possession of a firearm as a felon. 728 F.3d 1(2013). The court held that cell phones are distinct from otherphysical possessions that may be searched incident to arrestwithout a warrant, because of the amount of personal data cellphones contain and the negligible threat they pose to lawenforcement interests. See id., at 8–11. We granted certiorari.571 U.S. ___ (2014).II The Fourth Amendmentprovides: “The right of thepeople to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported byOath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to besearched, and the persons or things to be seized.” As the text makesclear, “the ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is‘reasonableness.’” Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S.398, 403 (2006) . Our cases have determined that “[w]here a searchis undertaken by law enforcement officials to discover evidence ofcriminal wrongdoing, ... reasonableness generallyrequires the obtaining of a judicial warrant.” Vernonia SchoolDist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 653 (1995) . Such a warrantensures that the inferences to support a search are “drawn by aneutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by theofficer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferretingout crime.” Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 14 (1948). In the absence of a warrant, a search is reasonable only if itfalls within a specific exception to the warrant requirement. SeeKentucky v. King, 563 U.S. ___, ___ (2011) (slip op., at5–6). The two cases before usconcern the reasonableness of a warrantless search incident to alawful arrest. In 1914, this Court first acknowledged in dictum“the right on the part of the Government, always recognized underEnglish and American law, to search the person of the accused whenlegally arrested to discover and seize the fruits or evidences ofcrime.” Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383 . Since thattime, it has been well accepted that such a search constitutes anexception to the warrant requirement. Indeed, the label “exception”is something of a misnomer in this context, as warrantless searchesincident to arrest occur with far greater frequency than searchesconducted pursuant to a warrant. See 3 W. LaFave, Search andSeizure §5.2(b), p. 132, and n. 15 (5th ed. 2012). Although the existenceof the exception for such searches has been recognized for acentury, its scope has been de-bated for nearly as long. SeeArizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332, 350 (2009) (noting theexception’s “checkered his-tory”). That debate has focused on theextent to which officers may search property found on or near thearrestee. Three related precedents set forth the rules governingsuch searches: The first, Chimel v.California, 395 U.S. 752 (1969) , laid the groundwork formost of the existing search incident to arrest doctrine. Policeofficers in that case arrested Chimel inside his home and proceededto search his entire three-bedroom house, including the attic andgarage. In particular rooms, they also looked through the contentsof drawers. Id., at 753–754. The Court crafted thefollowing rule for assessing the reasonableness of a searchincident to arrest:“When an arrest is made, it is reasonablefor the arresting officer to search the person arrested in order toremove any weapons that the latter might seek to use in order toresist arrest or effect his escape. Otherwise, the officer’s safetymight well be endangered, and the arrest itself frustrated. Inaddition, it is entirely reasonable for the arresting officer tosearch for and seize any evidence on the arrestee’s person in orderto prevent its concealment or destruction....There is ample justification, therefore, for a search of thearrestee’s person and the area ‘within his immediatecontrol’—construing that phrase to mean the area from within whichhe might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence.”Id., at 762–763.The extensive warrantless search of Chimel’shome did not fit within this exception, because it was not neededto protect officer safety or to preserve evidence. Id., at 763,768. Four years later, inUnited States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218 (1973) , the Courtapplied the Chimel analysis in the context of a search of thearrestee’s person. A police officer had arrested Robinson fordriving with a revoked license. The officer conducted a patdownsearch and felt an object that he could not identify in Robinson’scoat pocket. He removed the object, which turned out to be acrumpled cigarette package, and opened it. Inside were 14 capsulesof heroin. Id., at 220, 223. The Court of Appealsconcluded that the search was unreasonable because Robinson wasunlikely to have evidence of the crime of arrest on his person, andbecause it believed that extracting the cigarette package andopening it could not be justified as part of a protective searchfor weapons. This Court reversed, rejecting the notion that“case-by-case adjudication” was required to determine “whether ornot there was present one of the reasons supporting the authorityfor a search of the person incident to a lawful arrest.” Id., at235. As the Court explained, “[t]he authority to search the personincident to a lawful custodial arrest, while based upon the need todisarm and to discover evidence, does not depend on what a courtmay later decide was the probability in a particular arrestsituation that weapons or evidence would in fact be found upon theperson of the suspect.” Ibid. Instead, a “custodial arrest of asuspect based on probable cause is a reasonable intrusion under theFourth Amendment; that intrusion being lawful, a search incident tothe arrest requires no additional justification.” Ibid. The Court thusconcluded that the search of Robinson was reasonable even thoughthere was no concern about the loss of evidence, and the arrestingofficer had no specific concern that Robinson might be armed. Id.,at 236. In doing so, the Court did not draw a line between a searchof Robinson’s person and a further examination of the cigarettepack found during that search. It merely noted that, “[h]aving inthe course of a lawful search come upon the crumpled package ofcigarettes, [the officer] was entitled to inspect it.” Ibid. A fewyears later, the Court clarified that this exception was limited to“personal property ... immediately associated with theperson of the arrestee.” United States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1, 15(1977) (200-pound, locked footlocker could not be searched incidentto arrest), abrogated on other grounds by California v. Acevedo,500 U. S. 565 (1991) . The search incident toarrest trilogy concludes with Gant, which analyzed searches of anarrestee’s vehicle. Gant, like Robinson, recognized that the Chimelconcerns for officer safety and evidence preservation underlie thesearch incident to arrest exception. See 556 U.S., at 338. Asa result, the Court concluded that Chimel could authorize police tosearch a vehicle “only when the arrestee is unsecured and withinreaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time of thesearch.” 556 U.S., at 343. Gant added, however, anindependent exception for a warrantless search of a vehicle’spassenger compartment “when it is ‘reasonable to believe evidencerelevant to the crime of arrest might be found in thevehicle.’” Ibid. (quoting Thornton v. United States, 541U.S. 615, 632 (2004) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment)).That exception stems not from Chimel, the Court explained, but from“circumstances unique to the vehicle context.” 556 U.S., at343.III These cases requireus to decide how the search incident to arrest doctrine applies tomodern cell phones, which are now such a pervasive and insistentpart of daily life that the proverbial visitor from Mars mightconclude they were an important feature of human anatomy. A smartphone of the sort taken from Riley was unheard of ten years ago; asignificant majority of American adults now own such phones. See A.Smith, Pew Research Center, Smartphone Ownership—2013 Update (June5, 2013). Even less sophisticated phones like Wurie’s, which havealready faded in popularity since Wurie was arrested in 2007, havebeen around for less than 15 years. Both phones are based ontechnology nearly inconceivable just a few decades ago, when Chimeland Robinson were decided. Absent more preciseguidance from the founding era, we generally determine whether toexempt a given type of search from the warrant requirement “byassessing, on the one hand, the degree to which it intrudes upon anindividual’s privacy and, on the other, the degree to which it isneeded for the promotion of legitimate governmental interests.”Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U.S. 295, 300 (1999) . Such abalancing of interests supported the search incident to arrestexception in Robinson, and a mechanical application of Robinsonmight well support the warrantless searches at issue here. But while Robinson’scategorical rule strikes the appropriate balance in the context ofphysical objects, neither of its rationales has much force withrespect to digital content on cell phones. On the governmentinterest side, Robinson concluded that the two risks identified inChimel—harm to officers and destruction of evidence—are present inall custodial arrests. There are no comparable risks when thesearch is of digital data. In addition, Robinson regarded anyprivacy interests retained by an individual after arrest assignificantly diminished by the fact of the arrest itself. Cellphones, however, place vast quantities of personal informationliterally in the hands of individuals. A search of the informationon a cell phone bears little resemblance to the type of briefphysical search considered in Robinson. We therefore decline toextend Robinson to searches of data on cell phones, and holdinstead that officers must generally secure a warrant beforeconducting such a search.A We first considereach Chimel concern in turn. In doing so, we do not overlookRobinson’s admonition that searches of a person incident to arrest,“while based upon theneed to disarm and to discover evidence,” arereasonable regardless of “the probability in a particular arrestsituation that weapons or evidence would in fact be found.” 414 U.S., at 235. Rather than requiring the “case-by-case adjudication”that Robinson rejected, ibid., we ask instead whether applicationof the search incident to arrest doctrine to this particularcategory of effects would “untether the rule from thejustifications underlying the Chimel exception,” Gant, supra, at343. See also Knowles v. Iowa, 525 U.S. 113, 119 (1998)(declining to extend Robinson to the issuance of citations, “asituation where the concern for officer safety is not present tothe same extent and the concern for destruction or loss of evidenceis not present at all”).1 Digital data storedon a cell phone cannot itself be used as a weapon to harm anarresting officer or to effectuate the arrestee’s escape. Lawenforcement officers remain free to examine the physical aspects ofa phone to ensure that it will not be used as a weapon—say, todetermine whether there is a razor blade hidden between the phoneand its case. Once an officer has secured a phone and eliminatedany potential physical threats, however, data on the phone canendanger no one. Perhaps the same mighthave been said of the cigarette pack seized from Robinson’s pocket.Once an officer gained control of the pack, it was unlikely thatRobinson could have accessed the pack’s contents. But unknownphysical objects may always pose risks, no matter how slight,during the tense atmosphere of a custodial arrest. The officer inRobinson testified that he could not identify the objects in thecigarette pack but knew they were not cigarettes. See 414U.S., at 223, 236, n. 7. Given that, a further search was areasonable protective measure. No such unknowns exist with respectto digital data. As the First Circuit explained, the officers whosearched Wurie’s cell phone “knew exactly what they would findtherein: data. They also knew that the data could not harm them.”728 F.3d, at 10. The United States andCalifornia both suggest that a search of cell phone data might helpensure officer safety in more indirect ways, for example byalerting officers that confederates of the arrestee are headed tothe scene. There is undoubtedly a strong government interest inwarning officers about such possibilities, but neither the UnitedStates nor California offers evidence to suggest that theirconcerns are based on actual experience. The proposed considerationwould also represent a broadening of Chimel’s concern that anarrestee himself might grab a weapon and use it against an officer“to resist arrest or effect his escape.” 395 U.S., at 763.And any such threats from outside the arrest scene do not “lurk[ ]in all custodial arrests.” Chadwick, 433 U.S., at 14–15.Accordingly, the interest in protecting officer safety does notjustify dispensing with the warrant requirement across the board.To the extent dangers to arresting officers may be implicated in aparticular way in a particular case, they are better addressedthrough consideration of case-specific exceptions to the warrantrequirement, such as the one for exigent circumstances. See, e.g.,Warden, Md. Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294 –299 (1967)(“The Fourth Amendment does not require police officers to delay inthe course of an investigation if to do so would gravely endangertheir lives or the lives of others.”).2 The United States andCalifornia focus primarily on the second Chimel rationale:preventing the destruction of evidence. Both Riley and Wurieconcede that officers could have seized and secured their cellphones to prevent destruction of evidence while seeking a warrant.See Brief for Petitioner in No. 13–132, p. 20; Brief for Respondentin No. 13–212, p. 41. That is a sensible concession. See Illinoisv. McArthur, 531 U.S. 326 –333 (2001); Chadwick, supra, at13, and n. 8. And once law enforcement officers have secured a cellphone, there is no longer any risk that the arrestee himself willbe able to delete incriminating data from the phone. The United States andCalifornia argue that information on a cell phone may neverthelessbe vulnerable to two types of evidence destruction unique todigital data—remote wiping and data encryption. Remote wipingoccurs when a phone, connected to a wireless network, receives asignal that erases stored data. This can happen when a third partysends a remote signal or when a phone is preprogrammed to deletedata upon entering or leaving certain geographic areas (so-called“geofencing”). See Dept. of Commerce, National Institute ofStandards and Technology, R. Ayers, S. Brothers, & W. Jansen,Guidelines on Mobile Device Forensics (Draft) 29, 31 (SP 800–101Rev. 1, Sept. 2013) (hereinafter Ayers). Encryption is a securityfeature that some modern cell phones use in addition to passwordprotection. When such phones lock, data becomes protected bysophisticated encryption that renders a phone all but “unbreakable”unless police know the password. Brief for United States as AmicusCuriae in No. 13–132, p. 11. As an initial matter,these broader concerns about the loss of evidence are distinct fromChimel’s focus on a defendant who responds to arrest by trying toconceal or destroy evidence within his reach. See 395 U.S.,at 763–764. With respect to remote wiping, the Government’s primaryconcern turns on the actions of third parties who are not presentat the scene of arrest. And data encryption is even further afield.There, the Government focuses on the ordinary operation of aphone’s security features, apart from any active attempt by adefendant or his associates to conceal or destroy evidence uponarrest. We have also been givenlittle reason to believe that either problem is prevalent. Thebriefing reveals only a couple of anecdotal examples of remotewiping triggered by an arrest. See Brief for Association of StateCriminal Investigative Agencies etal. as Amici Curiae in No.13–132, pp. 9–10; see also Tr. of Oral Arg. in No. 13–132,p. 48.Similarly, the opportunities for officers to search apassword-protected phone before data becomes encrypted are quitelimited. Law enforcement officers are very unlikely to come uponsuch a phone in an unlocked state because most phones lock at thetouch of a button or, as a default, after some very short period ofinactivity. See, e.g., iPhone User Guide for iOS 7.1 Software 10(2014) (default lock after about one minute). This may explain whythe encryption argument was not made until the merits stage in thisCourt, and has never been considered by the Courts of Appeals. Moreover, in situationsin which an arrest might trigger a remote-wipe attempt or anofficer discovers an unlocked phone, it is not clear that theability to conduct a warrantless search would make much of adifference. The need to effect the arrest, secure the scene, andtend to other press-ing matters means that law enforcement officersmay well not be able to turn their attention to a cell phone rightaway. See Tr. of Oral Arg. in No. 13–132, at 50; see also Brief forUnited States as Amicus Curiae in No. 13–132, at 19. Cell phonedata would be vulnerable to remote wiping from the time anindividual anticipates arrest to the time any eventual search ofthe phone is completed, which might be at the station house hourslater. Likewise, an officer who seizes a phone in an unlocked statemight not be able to begin his search in the short time remainingbefore the phone locks and data becomes encrypted. In any event, as toremote wiping, law enforcement is not without specific means toaddress the threat. Remote wiping can be fully prevented bydisconnecting a phone from the network. There are at least twosimple ways to do this: First, law enforcement officers can turnthe phone off or remove its battery. Second, if they are concernedabout encryption or other potential problems, they can leave aphone powered on and place it in an enclosure that isolates thephone from radio waves. See Ayers 30–31. Such devices are commonlycalled “Faraday bags,” after the English scientist Michael Faraday.They are essentially sandwich bags made of aluminum foil: cheap,lightweight, and easy to use. See Brief for Criminal Law Professorsas Amici Curiae 9. They may not be a complete answer to theproblem, see Ayers 32, but at least for now they provide areasonable response. In fact, a number of law enforcement agenciesaround the country already encourage the use of Faraday bags. See,e.g., Dept. of Justice, National Institute of Justice, ElectronicCrime Scene Investigation: A Guide for First Responders 14, 32 (2ded. Apr. 2008); Brief for Criminal Law Professors as Amici Curiae4–6. To the extent that lawenforcement still has specific concerns about the potential loss ofevidence in a particular case, there remain more targeted ways toaddress those concerns. If “the police are truly confronted with a‘now or never’ situation,”—for example, circumstances suggestingthat a defendant’s phone will be the target of an imminentremote-wipe attempt—they may be able to rely on exigentcircumstances to search the phone immediately. Missouri v. McNeely,569 U.S. ___, ___ (2013) (slip op., at 10) (quoting Roaden v.Kentucky, 413 U.S. 496, 505 (1973) ; some internal quotationmarks omitted). Or, if officers happen to seize a phone in anunlocked state, they may be able to disable a phone’sautomatic-lock feature in order to prevent the phone from lockingand encrypting data. See App. to Reply Brief in No. 13–132, p. 3a(diagramming the few necessary steps). Such a preventive measurecould be analyzed under the principles set forth in our decision inMcArthur, 531 U.S. 326 , which approved officers’ reasonablesteps to secure a scene to preserve evidence while they awaited awarrant. See id., at 331–333.B The search incidentto arrest exception rests not only on the heightened governmentinterests at stake in a volatile arrest situation, but also on anarrestee’s reduced privacy interests upon being taken into policecustody. Robinson focused primarily on the first of thoserationales. But it also quoted with approval then-Judge Cardozo’saccount of the historical basis for the search incident to arrestexception: “Search of the person becomes lawful when grounds forarrest and accusation have been discovered, and the law is in theact of subjecting the body of the accused to its physicaldominion.” 414 U.S., at 232 (quoting People v. Chiagles, 237N.Y. 193, 197, 142 N.E. 583, 584 (1923)); see also 414U.S., at 237 (Powell, J., concurring) (“an individuallawfully subjected to a custodial arrest retains no significantFourth Amendment interest in the privacy of his person”). Putsimply, a patdown of Robinson’s cloth-ing and an inspection of thecigarette pack found in his pocket constituted only minoradditional intrusions compared to the substantial governmentauthority exercised in taking Robinson into custody. See Chadwick,433 U.S., at 16, n.10 (searches of a person arejustified in part by “reduced expectations of privacy caused by thearrest”). The fact that anarrestee has diminished privacy interests does not mean that theFourth Amendment falls out of the picture entirely. Not everysearch “is acceptable solely because a person is in custody.”Maryland v. King, 569 U.S. ___, ___ (2013) (slip op., at 26).To the contrary, when “privacy-related concerns are weighty enough”a “search may require a warrant, notwithstanding the diminishedexpectations of privacy of the arrestee.” Ibid. One such example,of course, is Chimel. Chimel refused to “characteriz[e] theinvasion of privacy that results from a top-to-bottom search of aman’s house as ‘minor.’” 395 U.S., at 766–767, n. 12.Because a search of the arrestee’s entire house was a substantialinvasion beyond the arrest itself, the Court concluded that awarrant was required. Robinson is the onlydecision from this Court applying Chimel to a search of thecontents of an item found on an arrestee’s person. In an earliercase, this Court had approved a search of a zipper bag carried byan arrestee, but the Court analyzed only the validity of the arrestitself. See Draper v. United States, 358 U.S. 307 –311(1959). Lower courts applying Robinson and Chimel, however, haveapproved searches of a variety of personal items carried by anarrestee. See, e.g., United States v. Carrion, 809 F.2d 1120,1123, 1128 (CA5 1987) (billfold and address book); United States v.Watson, 669 F.2d 1374, 1383–1384 (CA11 1982) (wallet); UnitedStates v. Lee, 501 F.2d 890, 892 (CADC 1974) (purse). The United Statesasserts that a search of all data stored on a cell phone is“materially indistinguishable” from searches of these sorts ofphysical items. Brief for United States in No. 13–212, p. 26. Thatis like saying a ride on horseback is materially indistinguishablefrom a flight to the moon. Both are ways of getting from point A topoint B, but little else justifies lumping them together. Moderncell phones, as a category, implicate privacy concerns far beyondthose implicated by the search of a cigarette pack, a wallet, or apurse. A conclusion that inspecting the contents of an arrestee’spockets works no substantial additional intrusion on privacy beyondthe arrest itself may make sense as applied to physical items, butany extension of that reasoning to digital data has to rest on itsown bottom.1 Cell phones differ inboth a quantitative and a qualitative sense from other objects thatmight be kept on an arrestee’s person. The term “cell phone” isitself misleading shorthand; many of these devices are in factminicomputers that also happen to have the capacity to be used as atelephone. They could just as easily be called cameras, videoplayers, rolodexes, calendars, tape recorders, libraries, diaries,albums, televisions, maps, or newspapers. One of the most notabledistinguishing features of modern cell phones is their immensestorage capacity. Before cell phones, a search of a person waslimited by physical realities and tended as a general matter toconstitute only a narrow intrusion on privacy. See Kerr, Foreword:Accounting for Technological Change, 36 Harv. J.L. & Pub.Pol’y 403, 404–405 (2013). Most people cannot lug around everypiece of mail they have received for the past several months, everypicture they have taken, or every book or article they haveread—nor would they have any reason to attempt to do so. And ifthey did, they would have to drag behind them a trunk of the sortheld to require a search warrant in Chadwick, supra, rather than acontainer the size of the cigarette package in Robinson. But the possibleintrusion on privacy is not physically limited in the same way whenit comes to cell phones. The current top-selling smart phone has astandard capacity of 16 gigabytes (and is available with up to 64gigabytes). Sixteen gigabytes translates to millions of pages oftext, thousands of pictures, or hundreds of videos. See Kerr,supra, at 404; Brief for Center for Democracy & Technol-ogyetal. as Amici Curiae 7–8. Cell phones couple that capacitywith the ability to store many different types of information: Eventhe most basic phones that sell for less than $20 might holdphotographs, picture messages, text messages, Internet browsinghistory, a calendar, a thousand-entry phone book, and so on. Seeid., at 30; United States v. Flores-Lopez, 670 F.3d 803, 806(CA7 2012). We expect that the gulf between physical practicabilityand digital capacity will only continue to widen in the future. The storage capacity ofcell phones has several interrelated consequences for privacy.First, a cell phone collects in one place many distinct types ofinformation—an address, a note, a prescription, a bank statement, avideo—that reveal much more in combination than any isolatedrecord. Second, a cell phone’s capacity allows even just one typeof information to convey far more than previously possible. The sumof an individual’s private life can be reconstructed through athousand photographs labeled with dates, locations, anddescriptions; the same cannot be said of a photograph or two ofloved ones tucked into a wallet. Third, the data on a phone candate back to the purchase of the phone, or even earlier. A personmight carry in his pocket a slip of paper reminding him to call Mr.Jones; he would not carry a record of all his communications withMr. Jones for the past several months, as would routinely be kepton a phone.[1] Finally, there is anelement of pervasiveness that characterizes cell phones but notphysical records. Prior to the digital age, people did nottypically carry a cache of sensitive personal information with themas they went about their day. Now it is the person who is notcarrying a cell phone, with all that it contains, who is theexception. According to one poll, nearly three-quarters of smartphone users report being within five feet of their phones most ofthe time, with 12% admitting that they even use their phones in theshower. See Harris Interactive, 2013 Mobile Consumer Habits Study(June 2013). A decade ago police officers searching an arresteemight have occasionally stumbled across a highly personal item suchas a diary. See, e.g., United States v. Frankenberry, 387F.2d 337 (CA2 1967) (per curiam). But those discoveries werelikely to be few and far between. Today, by contrast, it is noexaggeration to say that many of the more than 90% of Americanadults who own a cell phone keep on their person a digital recordof nearly every aspect of their lives—from the mundane to theintimate. See Ontario v. Quon, 560 U.S. 746, 760 (2010) .Allowing the police to scrutinize such records on a routine basisis quite different from allowing them to search a personal item ortwo in the occasional case. Although the datastored on a cell phone is distinguished from physical records byquantity alone, certain types of data are also qualitativelydifferent. An Internet search and browsing history, for example,can be found on an Internet-enabled phone and could reveal anindividual’s private interests or concerns—perhaps a search forcertain symptoms of disease, coupled with frequent visits to WebMD.Data on a cell phone can also reveal where a person has been.Historic location information is a stand-ard feature on many smartphones and can reconstruct someone’s specific movements down to theminute, not only around town but also within a particular building.See United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. ___, ___ (2012)(Sotomayor, J., concurring) (slip op., at 3) (“GPS monitoringgenerates a precise, comprehensive record of a person’s publicmovements that reflects a wealth of detail about her familial,political, professional, religious, and sexual associations.”). Mobile applicationsoftware on a cell phone, or “apps,” offer a range of tools formanaging detailed information about all aspects of a person’s life.There are apps for Democratic Party news and Republican Party news;apps for alcohol, drug, and gambling addictions; apps for sharingprayer requests; apps for tracking pregnancy symptoms; apps forplanning your budget; apps for every conceivable hobby or pastime;apps for improving your romantic life. There are popular apps forbuying or selling just about anything, and the records of suchtransactions may be accessible on the phone indefinitely. There areover a million apps available in each of the two major app stores;the phrase “there’s an app for that” is now part of the popularlexicon. The average smart phone user has installed 33 apps, whichtogether can form a revealing montage of the user’s life. See Brieffor Electronic Privacy Information Center as Amicus Curiae in No.13–132, p. 9. In 1926, Learned Handobserved (in an opinion later quoted in Chimel) that it is “atotally different thing to search a man’s pockets and use againsthim what they contain, from ransacking his house for everythingwhich may incriminate him.” United States v. Kirschenblatt, 16F.2d 202, 203 (CA2). If his pockets contain a cell phone,however, that is no longer true. Indeed, a cell phone search wouldtypically expose to the government far more than the mostexhaustive search of a house: A phone not only contains in digitalform many sensitive records previ-ously found in the home; it alsocontains a broad array of private information never found in a homein any form—unless the phone is.2 To further complicatethe scope of the privacy interests at stake, the data a user viewson many modern cell phones may not in fact be stored on the deviceitself. Treating a cell phone as a container whose contents may besearched incident to an arrest is a bit strained as an initialmatter. See New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 460, n. 4(1981) (describing a “container” as “any object capable of holdinganother object”). But the analogy crumbles entirely when a cellphone is used to access data located elsewhere, at the tap of ascreen. That is what cell phones, with increasing frequency, aredesigned to do by taking advantage of “cloud computing.” Cloudcomputing is the capacity of Internet-connected devices to displaydata stored on remote servers rather than on the device itself.Cell phone users often may not know whether particular informationis stored on the device or in the cloud, and it generally makeslittle difference. See Brief for Electronic Privacy InformationCenter in No. 13–132, at 12–14, 20. Moreover, the same type of datamay be stored locally on the device for one user and in the cloudfor another. The United Statesconcedes that the search incident to arrest exception may not bestretched to cover a search of files accessed remotely—that is, asearch of files stored in the cloud. See Brief for United States inNo. 13–212, at 43–44. Such a search would be like finding a key ina suspect’s pocket and arguing that it allowed law enforcement tounlock and search a house. But officers searching a phone’s datawould not typically know whether the information they are viewingwas stored locally at the time of the arrest or has been pulledfrom the cloud. Although the Governmentrecognizes the problem, its proposed solutions are unclear. Itsuggests that officers could disconnect a phone from the networkbefore searching the device—the very solution whose feasibility itcontested with respect to the threat of remote wiping. Compare Tr.of Oral Arg. in No. 13–132, at 50–51, with Tr. of Oral Arg. in No.13–212, pp. 13–14. Alternatively, the Government proposes that lawenforcement agencies “develop protocols to address” concerns raisedby cloud computing. Reply Brief in No. 13–212, pp. 14–15. Probablya good idea, but the Founders did not fight a revolution to gainthe right to government agency protocols. The possibility that asearch might extend well beyond papers and effects in the physicalproximity of an arrestee is yet another reason that the privacyinterests here dwarf those in Robinson.C Apart from theirarguments for a direct extension of Robinson, the United States andCalifornia offer various fallback options for permittingwarrantless cell phone searches under certain circumstances. Eachof the proposals is flawed and contravenes our general preferenceto provide clear guidance to law enforcement through categoricalrules. “[I]f police are to have workable rules, the balancing ofthe competing interests ... ‘must in large part be doneon a categorical basis—not in an adhoc, case-by-case fashionby individual police officers.’” Michigan v. Summers, 452U.S. 692, 705, n. 19 (1981) (quoting Dunaway v. New York, 442U.S. 200 –220 (1979) (White, J., concurring)). The United States firstproposes that the Gant standard be imported from the vehiclecontext, allowing a warrantless search of an arrestee’s cell phonewhenever it is reasonable to believe that the phone containsevidence of the crime of arrest. But Gant relied on “circumstancesunique to the vehicle context” to endorse a search solely for thepurpose of gathering evidence. 556 U.S., at 343. JusticeScalia’s Thornton opinion, on which Gant was based, explained thatthose unique circumstances are “a reduced expectation of privacy”and “heightened law enforcement needs” when it comes to motorvehicles. 541 U.S., at 631; see also Wyoming v. Houghton, 526U.S., at 303–304. For reasons that we have explained, cellphone searches bear neither of those characteristics. At any rate, a Gantstandard would prove no practical limit at all when it comes tocell phone searches. In the vehicle context, Gant generallyprotects against searches for evidence of past crimes. See 3 W.LaFave, Search and Seizure §7.1(d), at 709, and n. 191. In the cellphone context, however, it is reasonable to expect thatincriminating information will be found on a phone regardless ofwhen the crime occurred. Similarly, in the vehicle context Gantrestricts broad searches resulting from minor crimes such astraffic violations. See id., §7.1(d), at 713, and n. 204. Thatwould not necessarily be true for cell phones. It would be aparticularly inexperienced or unimaginative law enforcement officerwho could not come up with sev-eral reasons to suppose evidence ofjust about any crime could be found on a cell phone. Even anindividual pulled over for something as basic as speeding mightwell have locational data dispositive of guilt on his phone. Anindividual pulled over for reckless driving might have evidence onthe phone that shows whether he was texting while driving. Thesources of potential pertinent information are virtually unlimited,so applying the Gant standard to cell phones would in effect give“police officers unbridled discretion to rummage at will among aperson’s private effects.” 556 U.S., at 345. The United States alsoproposes a rule that would restrict the scope of a cell phonesearch to those areas of the phone where an officer reasonablybelieves that infor-mation relevant to the crime, the arrestee’sidentity, or officer safety will be discovered. See Brief forUnited States in No. 13–212, at 51–53. This approach would againimpose few meaningful constraints on officers. The proposedcategories would sweep in a great deal of information, and officerswould not always be able to discern in advance what informationwould be found where. We also reject theUnited States’ final suggestion that officers should always be ableto search a phone’s call log, as they did in Wurie’s case. TheGovernment relies on Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979) ,which held that no warrant was required to use a pen register attelephone company premises to identify numbers dialed by aparticular caller. The Court in that case, however, concluded thatthe use of a pen register was not a “search” at all under theFourth Amendment. See id., at 745–746. There is no dispute herethat the officers engaged in a search of Wurie’s cell phone.Moreover, call logs typically contain more than just phone numbers;they include any identifying information that an individual mightadd, such as the label “my house” in Wurie’s case. Finally, at oralargument California suggested a different limiting principle, underwhich officers could search cell phone data if they could haveobtained the same information from a pre-digital counterpart. SeeTr. of Oral Arg. in No. 13–132, at 38–43; see also Flores-Lopez,670 F.3d, at 807 (“If police are entitled to open a pocketdiary to copy the owner’s address, they should be entitled to turnon a cell phone to learn its number.”). But the fact that a searchin the pre-digital era could have turned up a photograph or two ina wallet does not justify a search of thousands of photos in adigital gallery. The fact that someone could have tucked a paperbank statement in a pocket does not justify a search of every bankstatement from the last five years. And to make matters worse, suchan analogue test would allow law enforcement to search a range ofitems contained on a phone, even though people would be unlikely tocarry such a variety of information in physical form. In Riley’scase, for example, it is implausible that he would have strolledaround with video tapes, photo albums, and an address book allcrammed into his pockets. But because each of those items has apre-digital analogue, police under California’s proposal would beable to search a phone for all of those items—a significantdiminution of privacy. In addition, ananalogue test would launch courts on a difficult line-drawingexpedition to determine which digital files are comparable tophysical records. Is an e-mail equivalent to a letter? Is avoicemail equivalent to a phone message slip? It is not clear howofficers could make these kinds of decisions before conducting asearch, or how courts would apply the proposed rule after the fact.An analogue test would “keep defendants and judges guessing foryears to come.” Sykes v. United States, 564 U.S. 1 , ___(2011) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 7) (discussing theCourt’s analogue test under the Armed Career Criminal Act).IV We cannot deny thatour decision today will have an impact on the ability of lawenforcement to combat crime. Cell phones have become importanttools in facilitating coordination and communication among membersof criminal enterprises, and can provide valuable incriminatinginformation about dangerous criminals. Privacy comes at a cost. Our holding, of course,is not that the information on a cell phone is immune from search;it is instead that a warrant is generally required before such asearch, even when a cell phone is seized incident to arrest. Ourcases have historically recognized that the warrant requirement is“an important working part of our machinery of gov-ernment,” notmerely “an inconvenience to be somehow ‘weighed’ against the claimsof police efficiency.” Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S.443, 481 (1971) . Recent technological advances similar to thosediscussed here have, in addition, made the process of obtaining awarrant itself more efficient. See McNeely, 569 U.S., at ___(slip op., at 11–12); id., at ___ (Roberts, C.J., concurringin part and dissenting in part) (slip op., at 8) (describingjurisdiction where “police officers can e-mail warrant requests tojudges’ iPads [and] judges have signed such warrants and e-mailedthem back to officers in less than 15 minutes”). Moreover, even thoughthe search incident to arrest exception does not apply to cellphones, other case-specific exceptions may still justify awarrantless search of a particular phone. “One well-recognizedexception applies when ‘“the exigencies of the situation”make the needs of law enforcement so compelling that [a]warrantless search is objectively reasonable under the FourthAmendment.’” Kentucky v. King, 563 U.S., at ___ (slipop., at 6) (quoting Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 394(1978) ). Such exigencies could include the need to prevent theimminent destruction of evidence in individual cases, to pursue afleeing suspect, and to assist persons who are seriously injured orare threatened with imminent injury. 563 U.S., at ___. InChadwick, for example, the Court held that the exception forsearches incident to arrest did not justify a search of the trunkat issue, but noted that “if officers have reason to believe thatluggage contains some immediately dangerous instrumentality, suchas explosives, it would be foolhardy to transport it to the stationhouse without opening the luggage.” 433 U.S., at 15, n.9. In light of theavailability of the exigent circumstances exception, there is noreason to believe that law enforcement officers will not be able toaddress some of the more extreme hypotheticals that have beensuggested: a suspect texting an accomplice who, it is feared, ispreparing to detonate a bomb, or a child abductor who may haveinformation about the child’s location on his cell phone. Thedefendants here recognize—indeed, they stress—that suchfact-specific threats may justify a warrantless search of cellphone data. See Reply Brief in No. 13–132, at 8–9; Brief forRespondent in No. 13–212, at 30, 41. The critical point is that,unlike the search incident to arrest exception, the exigentcircumstances exception requires a court to examine whether anemergency justified a warrantless search in each particular case.See McNeely, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 6).[2]*  *  * Our cases haverecognized that the Fourth Amendment was the founding generation’sresponse to the reviled “general warrants” and “writs ofassistance” of the colonial era, which allowed British officers torummage through homes in an unrestrained search for evidence ofcriminal activity. Opposition to such searches was in fact one ofthe driving forces behind the Revolution itself. In 1761, thepatriot James Otis delivered a speech in Boston denouncing the useof writs of assistance. A young John Adams was there, and he wouldlater write that “[e]very man of a crowded audience appeared to meto go away, as I did, ready to take arms against writs ofassistance.” 10 Works of John Adams 247–248 (C. Adams ed. 1856).According to Adams, Otis’s speech was “the first scene of the firstact of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Thenand there the child Independence was born.” Id., at 248 (quoted inBoyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 625 (1886) ). Modern cell phones arenot just another technological convenience. With all they containand all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans “theprivacies of life,” Boyd, supra, at 630. The fact that technologynow allows an individual to carry such information in his hand doesnot make the information any less worthy of the protection forwhich the Founders fought. Our answer to the question of whatpolice must do before searching a cell phone seized incident to anarrest is accordingly simple—get a warrant. We reverse the judgmentof the California Court of Appeal in No. 13–132 and remand the casefor further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. Weaffirm the judgment of the First Circuit in No. 13–212.It is so ordered.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES_________________Nos. 13–132 and 13–212_________________DAVID LEON RILEY, PETITIONER13–132 v.CALIFORNIAon writ of certiorari to the court of appealof cali-fornia, fourth appellate district, division oneUNITED STATES, PETITIONER13–212 v.BRIMA WURIEon writ of certiorari to the united statescourt of appeals for the first circuit[June 25, 2014] Justice Alito,concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. I agree with the Courtthat law enforcement officers, in conducting a lawful searchincident to arrest, must generally obtain a warrant beforesearching information stored or accessible on a cell phone. I writeseparately to address two points.IA First, I am notconvinced at this time that the ancient rule on searches incidentto arrest is based exclusively (or even primarily) on the need toprotect the safety of arresting officers and the need to preventthe destruction of evidence. Cf. ante, at 9. This rule antedatesthe 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(1914) , we held that the Fourth Amendment did not disturb thisrule. See also Taylor, supra, at 45; Stuntz, The SubstantiveOrigins of Criminal Procedure, 105 Yale L. J. 393, 401 (1995) (“Thepower to search incident to arrest—a search of the arrestedsuspect’s person ...—was well established in themid-eighteenth century, and nothing in ... the FourthAmendment changed that”). And neither in Weeks nor in any of theauthorities discussing the old common-law rule have I found anysuggestion that it was based exclusively or primarily on the needto protect arresting officers or to prevent the destruction ofevidence. On the contrary, whenpre-Weeks authorities discussed the basis for the rule, what wasmentioned 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 alawful arrest by them of one charged with treason or felony, totake and detain prop-erty found in his possession which will formmaterial evi-dence in his prosecution for that crime.” See Dillonv. O’Brien, 16 Cox Crim. Cas. 245, 249–251 (1887) (citing Regina,v. Frost, 9 Car. & P. 129, 173 Eng. Rep. 771)). The court notedthat the origins of that rule “deriv[e] from the interest which theState has in a person guilty (or reasonably believed to be guilty)of a crime being brought to justice, and in a prosecution, oncecommenced, 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). Two 19th-centurytreatises that this Court has previ-ously cited in connection withthe origin of the search-incident-to-arrest rule, see Weeks, supra,at 392, suggest the same rationale. See F. Wharton, CriminalPleading and Practice §60, p. 45 (8th ed. 1880) (“Those arresting adefendant are bound to take from his person any articles which maybe of use as proof in the trial of the offense with which thedefendant is charged”); J. Bishop, Criminal Procedure §§210–212, p.127 (2d ed. 1872) (if an arresting officer finds “about theprisoner’s person, or otherwise in his possession, either goods ormoneys which there is reason to believe are connected with thesupposed crime as its fruits, or as the instruments with which itwas committed, or as directly furnishing evidence relating to thetransaction, he may take the same, and hold them to be disposed ofas the court may direct”). What ultimatelyconvinces me that the rule is not closely linked to the need forofficer safety and evidence preser-vation is that these rationalesfail to explain the rule’s well-recognized scope. It has long beenaccepted that written items found on the person of an arrestee maybe examined and used at trial.[1]* But once these items are taken away from an arrestee(something that obviously must be done before the items are read),there is no risk that the arrestee will destroy them. Nor is thereany risk that leaving these items unread will endanger thearresting officers. The idea that officersafety and the preservation of evidence are the sole reasons forallowing a warrantless search incident to arrest appears to derivefrom the Court’s reasoning in Chimel v. California, 395 U.S.752 (1969) , a case that involved the lawfulness of a search of thescene of an arrest, not the person of an arrestee. As I haveexplained, Chimel’s reasoning is questionable, see Arizona v. Gant,556 U.S. 332 –363 (2009) (Alito, J., dissenting), and I thinkit is a mistake to allow that reasoning to affect cases like thesethat concern the search of the person of arrestees.B Despite my view onthe point discussed above, I agree that we should not mechanicallyapply the rule used in the predigital era to the search of a cellphone. Many cell phones now in use are capable of storing andaccessing a quantity of information, some highly personal, that noperson would ever have had on his person in hard-copy form. Thiscalls for a new balancing of law enforcement and privacyinterests. The Court strikes thisbalance in favor of privacy interests with respect to all cellphones and all information found in them, and this approach leadsto anomalies. For example, the Court’s broad holding favorsinformation in digital form over information in hard-copy form.Suppose that two suspects are arrested. Suspect number one has inhis pocket a monthly bill for his land-line phone, and the billlists an incriminating call to a long-distance number. He also hasin his a wallet a few snapshots, and one of these is incriminating.Suspect number two has in his pocket a cell phone, the call log ofwhich shows a call to the same incriminating number. In addition, anumber of photos are stored in the memory of the cell phone, andone of these is incriminating. Under established law, the policemay seize and examine the phone bill and the snapshots in thewallet without obtaining a warrant, but under the Court’s holdingtoday, the information stored in the cell phone is out. While the Court’sapproach leads to anomalies, I do not see a workable alternative.Law enforcement officers need clear rules regarding searchesincident to arrest, and it would take many cases and many years forthe courts to develop more nuanced rules. And during that time, thenature of the electronic devices that ordinary Americans carry ontheir persons would continue to change.II This brings me to mysecond point. While I agree with the holding of the Court, I wouldreconsider the question presented here if either Congress or statelegislatures, after assessing the legitimate needs of lawenforcement and the privacy interests of cell phone owners, enactlegislation that draws reasonable distinctions based on categoriesof information or perhaps other variables. The regulation ofelectronic surveillance provides an instructive example. After thisCourt held that electronic surveillance constitutes a search evenwhen no property interest is invaded, see Katz v. United States,389 U.S. 347 –359 (1967), Congress responded by enactingTitle III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of1968, 82Stat. 211. See also 18 U.S.C. §2510etseq. Since that time, electronic surveillance has beengoverned primarily, not by decisions of this Court, but by thestat-ute, which authorizes but imposes detailed restrictions onelectronic surveillance. See ibid. Modern cell phones areof great value for both lawful and unlawful purposes. They can beused in committing many serious crimes, and they present new anddifficult law enforcement problems. See Brief for United States inNo. 13–212, pp. 2–3. At the same time, because of the role thatthese devices have come to play in contemporary life, searchingtheir contents implicates very sensitive privacy interests thatthis Court is poorly positioned to understand and evaluate. Manyforms of modern technology are making it easier and easier for bothgovernment and private entities to amass a wealth of informationabout the lives of ordinary Americans, and at the same time, manyordinary Americans are choosing to make public much informationthat was seldom revealed to outsiders just a few decades ago. In light of thesedevelopments, it would be very unfortunate if privacy protection inthe 21st century were left primarily to the federal courts usingthe blunt instrument of the Fourth Amendment. Legislatures, electedby the people, are in a better position than we are to assess andrespond to the changes that have already occurred and those thatalmost certainly will take place in the future.