With a warrant, the government can look through my sock drawer. What do I care if they can look through my phone?
Under which religious or political umbrage do you reside?
What if you had something on your phone that isn't illegal now, but is tomorrow? (3D printed gun plans, source code that is found to have been published without consent, an ebook on sexual positions that are still illegal depending on which state and county you are standing on??)
15ish years ago, certain states might have pressed charges if you had a dildo in your sock drawer.
What is in your sock drawer?
Another implication is why would a court order grant access to a sock drawer but not a phone. What makes one unlike the other, regarding lawful court approved search warrants.
Very vanilla and mainstream, religiously and politically.
> What if you had something on your phone that isn't illegal now, but is tomorrow?
I'd delete it? But I probably wouldn't have it in the first place, for the reason above.
> 15ish years ago, certain states might have pressed charges if you had a dildo in your sock drawer.
And that would be wrong. But it'd be the law against the dildo in the sock drawer that would be wrong, not the general principle that the government has the right to search your sock drawer so long as it obtains a warrant based on probable cause. That principle has worked pretty damn well for 200+ years and I see no reason to change it now.
So you'd have yourself and people you care about hang out in prison, cheerfully thinking to yourself, "We're only here because the law is wrong."
> worked pretty damn well for 200+ years and I see no reason to change it now.
That hasn't been running on its own automatically. It's been a massive bulwark of principled people maintaining it against attacks. And there are too many examples to count of misleading evidence used to mischaracterize, defame or prejudice opinions against individuals.
Consider our own government's treatment of blacks up to and including now. The government doesn't always know what is right and needs principled citizens to amend it.
Think back to that recent demo of predicting race by zip code. Thank back to predatory loaning practices, the KKK, job interview biases, unequal prison sentencing, racial bias by police, etc. and consider what happens in less-principled countries like Turkey and Germany. If I were of a non-mainstream race, I would want as few people to know as possible and I would want protection from society's baser instincts.
Otherwise, it's too easy for people with an axe to grind to abuse their power by sweeping through, say, all phones and singling out by language those that appear to be used by an ethnic or cultural group who may be prejudged to be a threat.
However, as a German, I find it interesting why you mention Germany as "less-principled". Less-principled than the US? Do you talk about current Germany or about former east Germany or even Nazi Germany?
Of course, there are enough problems here as anywhere else regarding privacy, etc. But I have difficulties seeing current Germany as "less-principled" than the US wrt. privacy, human rights etc.
Just curious what your impression is based on.
http://www.amazon.com/Nazi-Census-Identification-Control-Pol...
In fact, I would strongly push for anyone working with "big data" to read up on this. Just because we can, does not mean we should.
Data does not have a "use this only this way and only for good" button.
However, as multiple sites have opined, this is about setting precedent and the actual data on the phone is secondary.
From a legal perspective, this is no different from asking Apple to circumvent the passcode protection to extract unencrypted data off a device, which Apple has already done many times.
Over three years ago, a newspaper as everyday as USA Today reported "CVS, Walgreens, Kroger, Safeway, Target and Walmart are among major national chains that now include vibrators on store shelves" [1].
IOW Saying the world dildo no longer qualifies as creepy.
[1] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/wellness/story/20...
And potentially incriminating secrets wrapped in metaphorical socks, apparently.
Probably one of those socks should contain a big machine bolt with a bunch of heavy hex-nuts screwed onto it, so that anyone who comes around to sniff at my socks can get a proper beating (along with the regular intrinsic olfactory penalty for sniffing my socks).
But I feel like you're missing something. The government cops aren't always going to be looking for incriminating evidence or actionable intelligence. They might just be using that as a pretext to look for cash or valuables that they can slip into their own pockets. You kept it a secret, after all, so how would you prove that they stole it? That's just one of the ways in which power corrupts.
People do care about privacy, but the use case varies. However just because you claim not to care, it does not mean that that becomes the minimum standard everyone else has to adhere to.