Since the election of President Barack Obama, police and other government agencies have had an increase in their ability to track and detain and snoop and spy on American citizens. Things have only gotten worse since the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act. But until now, it has never been known what information police and other agencies can take from your cellphones without a warrant.
Recently, a court document detailing the data collected from a seized iPhone was discovered by the American Civil Liberties Union. Without due process, any U.S. law enforcement agency can access a person’s call logs, Web history, data files text messages, geo-locations and even data relating to proprietary technologies, such as Apple’s iMessage service. Not to mention that data from geo-location points, including cell towers, enable law enforcement to track people without their knowledge.
So much for one’s Fourth Amendment rights. As it stands, law enforcement can even access a smartphone owner’s email since most people use their cellphones to access email. In the long run, not requiring a warrant to collect such information may create an invasive police state given laws such as the Stored Communications Act that allow authorities to bypass the need to submit subpoenas because the email data is already stored on the suspect’s device.
