Cops Already Using iPhones to Collect Data on Americans

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 (except for iPhone and Android users).

I added the last part of course. James Madison had no clue what an iPhone was, but I guarantee he wouldn't approve of how federal, state, and local governments plan and are using data the iPhone is transmitting about its user.

Alex Levinson, 21, works at the Rochester Institute of Technology in western New York, and he has been studying forensic computing and working with Katana Forensics, which makes tools for interrogating iOS devices.

In a post on his blog, he explains that the existence of the location database—which tracks the cellphone towers your phone has connected to—has been public in security circles for some time. While it's not widely known, that's not the same as not being known at all. In fact, he has written and presented several papers on the subject and even contributed a chapter on the location data in a book that covers forensic analysis of the iPhone.

Should we be surprised? Why has it taken this long for the outrage and concerns? If you remember, fresh from his anger with George W. Bush over his use of wire tapping against the Fourth Amendment thanks to the Patriot Act, one Barack Obama decided it was in the federal government's best interest to track Americans using their cell phones and that federal government should be immune from law suits arising from wire tapping Americans' phones.