Just how much does the Constitution protect your digital data? The Supreme Court will now consider whether police can search the contents of a mobile phone without a warrant if the phone is on or around a person during an arrest.

    California has asked the justices to refrain from a sweeping ruling, particularly one that upsets the old assumption that authorities may search through the possessions of suspects at the time of their arrest. It is hard, the state argues, for judges to assess the implications of new and rapidly changing technologies.

    The court would be recklessly modest if it followed California’s advice. Enough of the implications are discernable, even obvious, so that the justices can and should provide updated guidelines to police, lawyers and defendants.

    They should start by discarding California’s lame argument that exploring the contents of a smartphone—a vast storehouse of digital information—is similar to, say, going through a suspect’s purse. The court has ruled that police don’t violate the Fourth Amendment when they go through the wallet or pocketbook of an arrestee without a warrant. But exploring one’s smartphone is more like entering his or her home. A smartphone may contain an arrestee’s reading history, financial history, medical history and comprehensive records of recent correspondence. The development of “cloud computing,” meanwhile, has made that exploration so much easier.

    Americans should take steps to protect their digital privacy. But keeping sensitive information on these devices is increasingly a requirement of normal life. Citizens still have a right to expect private documents to remain private and protected by the Constitution’s prohibition on unreasonable searches.

    As so often is the case, stating that principle doesn’t ease the challenge of line-drawing. In many cases, it would not be overly burdensome for authorities to obtain a warrant to search through phone contents. They could still invalidate Fourth Amendment protections when facing severe, urgent circumstances, and they could take reasonable measures to ensure that phone data are not erased or altered while waiting for a warrant. The court, though, may want to allow room for police to cite situations where they are entitled to more freedom.

    But the justices should not swallow California’s argument whole. New, disruptive technology sometimes demands novel applications of the Constitution’s protections. Orin Kerr, a law professor, compares the explosion and accessibility of digital information in the 21st century with the establishment of automobile use as a virtual necessity of life in the 20th: The justices had to specify novel rules for the new personal domain of the passenger car then; they must sort out how the Fourth Amendment applies to digital information now.

答案精析：根据题干中的Orin Kerr和comparison可定位至文章最后一段第三句。该句指出，法学教授奥林·科尔把21世纪的数据信息的激增和20世纪确定私家车为必需品作比较，来说明前一句的观点，即新的颠覆性技术有时需要对宪法保护条例进行新的运用。B项中的reinterpretation of the Constitution是原文novel applications of the Constitution’s protections的同义转述，故正确答案为B。

错项排除：A项内容有一定的干扰性，但要注意的是原文是说面对新技术，宪法保护条例的灵活运用，这并不能等同于灵活执行，A项内容属于过度推断，故排除。作者在原文中虽然否定了加州的观点，但并不表明它违反了宪法的原则，而且引用奥林·科尔比较的目的也并不在于证明加州观点是否违反了宪法原则。C项内容与原文不符，故排除。作者引用奥林·科尔的比较就是为了强调宪法应作出新的运用，而D项内容和原文观点相悖，故排除。