They want the authority to search phones <i>incident to arrest</i>. Before you form an opinion about this --- I'm not sure what mine is --- you should know that the police have always had broad authority to conduct warrantless, intrusive searches at the time of an actual arrest. That's one of the things that makes arrest very different from mere detention.<p>If you're arrested by the police, they will not generally need to obtain a warrant to search your person, your pockets, your bag, or the passenger compartment of your car. Thoroughly.<p>People confuse "search incident to arrest" with "Terry stops", which are light, supposedly unintrusive searches that can be conducted without individualized suspicion for purposes of officer safety (ie, for weapons). Terry stops are the ones where, supposedly, the police aren't supposed to be reaching into your pocket. Search incident to arrest, going back over 100 years, has always had a purpose of <i>discovering and preserving evidence</i>; they aren't simply about officer safety.<p>That said: a modern smart phone is more than just a container you carry on your person. It can provide access to much of the same personal information that a search of your most personal possessions would. It's a totally reasonable question as to whether an intrusive search of the data on a smartphone falls into the rubrick of what search incident to arrest was meant to cover.<p>Either way: make sure your phone is encrypted.
Since modern technology keeps extensive track of everybody's life at all times, when police take an interest in you they now get to examine a complete picture of everything about you. What you were doing, what you were going to do, who you've been talking to, who you work for, your family, your sex life, your romantic life, your interests, your politics, your religion, everything. Why get a search warrant if they can just pull you over for not signaling correctly and then get access to your entire life nicely packaged for them?<p>Ten years ago they didn't have any of these tools that they now claim are indispensable to do their jobs. How did they do their jobs back then?
Police work /should/ be hard. We don't /want/ it to be trivial for police to poke around in the depths of your personal data, fishing for reasons to think you might have done something wrong in the past.<p>"my job is difficult" is not sufficient reason to justify what they are asking for.
As the article mentions, there's no real need for these search powers, when the phone can simply be turned off or physically taken out of range of reception to prevent it from being wiped. The feds have yet to prove this is even a real problem.
Why are warrants so bad? How about a public log of every agent and what they searched for and why they searched it.<p>I believe we would be exposed to the inanity of their methods and means. It is sheer embarrassment that they don't want their actions logged.
Do you think the kill switches mentioned in this article are really to help with mobile phone thefts? It's probably more likely the kill switches will be used to turn off phones in areas where people are doing things the government doesn't like. Want to take a photo of that police officer beating your friend? Sorry, kill switch.
Honestly, I dont feel like the mandated kill switch is going to be an issue for someone who is wanting to be able to wipe their phones in the case of apprehension. The guys out there today already have a means ready, such as rooting and having a wipe program ready.