What’s this? The Supreme Court of the United States has voted unanimously on a ruling that makes sense for Americans? Did hell freeze over or what?

The court ruled 9-to-zip that police need warrants to search people’s cell phones. They can’t just grab them and start poring through text messages, missed calls, voice mails and the other stuff that piles up in people’s cell phones.

What’s more, the ruling has implications to go far beyond the devices people pack on their hips, in their pockets or their purses. It could involve other “smart” devices such as I-pads and laptops.

As the New York Times reported: “Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the court, was keenly alert to the central role that cellphones play in contemporary life. They are, he said, ‘such a pervasive and insistent part of daily life that the proverbial visitor from Mars might conclude they were an important feature of human anatomy.’”

Privacy advocates are happy. Heck, I’m happy about it, even though my own phone doesn’t have much in the way secret messages stashed on it.

A back story, here, is the unanimity aspect of the ruling. The court usually splits 5-4 or 6-3 — along liberal-conservative lines. This time all nine of ’em were on the same page.

The Digital Age keeps adding wrinkles that few of us ever imagined when this technology first became available. Even though we can access information much more readily these days, certain principles of privacy and constitutional protection must prevail.

The highest court in America has realized that truth.