I have to wonder why mobile phones aren't better protected against this kind of attack. It doesn't seem like the default should be to allow an unauthenticated device to plug in and read/image the phone.
The people who do ask for it are obviously criminals.
You're being sarcastic, but we're moving in the direction of "police need unlimited power to investigate, so let's make it illegal to ask for privacy". And yes, we're a long way off from that scenario (at least in the USA) but I can see it on the horizon.
The thing that really scares me is the UK system -- CCTV cameras on every corner explicitly built for surveillance. We have a lot of cameras in the US (traffic, ATM, etc) but they generally belong to different entities and there is no comprehensive framework for getting (near)real-time footage from all of them.
http://www.dailypress.com/news/crime/dp-nws-police-cameras-2...
Then we were supposed to not give into the terrorists, but with these new hidden internet terrorists it's vital that we hand over our lives to the police.