Orin Kerr writes:
The new cell phone search case, Riley v. California, is methodologically quite important for the future of the Fourth Amendment. At the same time, my former DOJ colleague Mark Eckenwiler argues that the case will have less of a direct impact in practice than many believe:
The unanimous decision on Wednesday, however, will not mean the end of cellphone searches, said Mark Eckenwiler, a former deputy chief of the Justice Department’s computer crime section. He said that Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion allows searches when the owner of the phone gives consent, and that “police will now, as a routine matter, ask for consent.”
“And an extraordinary number of arrestees will give that consent,” Mr. Eckenwiler said, “just as people consent today to all sorts of searches of cars and containers, very much against their personal interest.”
Read more on WaPo The Volokh Conspiracy.