The Court likened such an indiscriminate grant of authority to search for any evidence of any crime to a general warrant, a tool used by British authorities in colonial America that the Fourth Amendment was enacted to outlaw. The Court held that conversations are protected by the Fourth Amendment, and that the use of electronic devices to capture conversations thus constituted a "search."
The Court likened this unrestricted power to conduct searches with a general warrant used by British officials during American colonization, which was outlawed by the Fourth Amendment. The Court determined that phone calls are protected by the Fourth Amendment, and recording them through electronic means amounts to a search.