Just how much does the Constitution protect your digital data? The Supreme Court will now consider whether police can search the

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问题    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 assumptions 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 justice 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 the 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.
Orin Kerr’ s comparison is quoted to indicate that

选项 A、the Constitution should be implemented flexibly.
B、new technology requires reinterpretation of the Constitution.
C、California’ s argument violates principles of the Constitution.
D、principles of the Constitution should never be altered.

答案B

解析 推断题。根据题干关键词Orin Kerr’s comparison定位到最后一段。根据该段第二句New, disruptive technology sometimes demands novel applications of the Constitution’s protections可 知,作者认为宪法应适应新技术的发展,接下来引用了奥林.克尔的话,也是为了证明这一点, 故选B项“新技术要求宪法的重新解释”。A项“宪法应该被灵活地实施”没有提到新技术的影 响,过于片面。C项“加利福尼亚州的提议违反了宪法原则”原文没有提到。D项“宪法原则绝不 应被改变”与文意相反。
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