The U.S. Supreme Court made a handful of high-profile rulings last week, from its decision to strike down abortion clinic buffer zones to its curbing of the President’s power to make appointments when Congress is on recess. But none were more important, or more right, than the unanimous decision to not allow law enforcement to search cell phones without a warrant. The ruling was a major victory for every American’s right to privacy under the Fourth Amendment.

The Court ruled on Wednesday that police must obtain a warrant before searching the contents of a cell phone seized from someone who has been arrested. An exception is a true emergency situation, which is also granted under the Fourth Amendment.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who authored the court’s opinion, compared police searches of cell phones to colonial Americans’ fight against unreasonable searches and seizures.

“Cell phones hold for many Americans the privacies of life,” he wrote. “The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought.”

We’re glad the law is finally catching up with the digital age, and that the Supreme Court recognizes the clear difference between data on a cell phone and the contents of a purse or wallet, which the Justice Department argued is no different.

“That is like saying a ride on horseback is materially indistinguishable from a flight to the moon,” Roberts wrote.

This is an important ruling in a time of incredible overreach by the National Security Agency, whose warrantless data collection program is hopefully coming to an end. We hope Wednesday’s ruling helps push President Obama to follow through on his plan to curb the program, and sways Congress to at least not interfere.

As Roberts wrote, privacy comes at a cost. The ruling will surely impede officers’ and prosecutors’ ability to catch and build cases against potential criminals, but, as Roberts wrote, the answer is simple: “Get a warrant.”

We commend the Supreme Court for its decision. It was an obvious one.