When will they stop?

Question of the day: Can government ever resist the urge to abuse its power?

Before you consider the news story I'm about to post, please read the following:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no Warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Does anyone here recognize those words? Anyone? Okay, if you do recognize those words (the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of this country), and their meaning, you probably don't work for government (and it's not just this Amendment, sadly).

With that in mind, consider this story out of Michigan, from theNewspaper.com:
"Michigan: Police Search Cell Phones During Traffic Stops"
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/34/3458.asp

Can anyone seriously argue that the contents of one's cellphone, particularly modern so-called "smartphones," are the modern day equivalents of "papers and effects"? And why would police need to extract cell phone information from motorists stopped for traffic violations? Why would they need to search those people or their cars or their phones at all???

The device in question is a CelleBrite UFED. They are specifically marketing this device to Military, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence Agencies. While there may be a time and place for the use of such a device, police should not be allowed to use it to search anything without a warrant.

Click through the Cellebrite website. It can grab EVERYTHING from your phone. From theNewspaper.com story:
"'Complete extraction of existing, hidden, and deleted phone data, including call history, text messages, contacts, images, and geotags,' a CelleBrite brochure explains regarding the device's capabilities. 'The Physical Analyzer allows visualization of both existing and deleted locations on Google Earth. In addition, location information from GPS devices and image geotags can be mapped on Google Maps.'"

"The ACLU is concerned that these powerful capabilities are being quietly used to bypass Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches."
I completely agree with the ACLU in this case.


Note also that if you have an iPhone you have more reason to be worried. Consider this article from radar.oreilly.com:
"Got an iPhone or 3G iPad? Apple is recording your moves
A hidden file in iOS 4 is regularly recording the position of devices."
by Alasdair Allan
http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/04/apple-location-tracking.html

"...your iPhone, and your 3G iPad, is regularly recording the position of your device into a hidden file. Ever since iOS 4 arrived, your device has been storing a long list of locations and time stamps. We're not sure why Apple is gathering this data, but it's clearly intentional, as the database is being restored across backups, and even device migrations."

"What makes this issue worse is that the file is unencrypted and unprotected, and it's on any machine you've synched with your iOS device. It can also be easily accessed on the device itself if it falls into the wrong hands. Anybody with access to this file knows where you've been over the last year, since iOS 4 was released."

So think twice before you get an iPhone...