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Don't put anything on your phone they you wouldn't want the police to see.

Technically the cops need a search warrant to view your phone, but the police routinely use 4th Amendment to wipe their *sses when they go to the bathroom. You can count on the police committing perjury if they illegally break into your phone and telling the jury that you gave them permission to search it.

Of course cops don't consider it perjury. Cop lie in court so often they have a slang word for it which is called "testilying".

Source

Your iPhone knows more than you may want Apple, feds or anyone to know

Phil Rosenthal Phil Rosenthal Contact Reporter If you don't know what's at stake in Apple's standoff with the U.S. government and you own an iPhone, grab it and I'll show you.

Got it? Good.

There's quite a dossier likely locked away in there if your phone is running on iOS 7 or higher, updated since fall 2013.

You're in for a thrill, assuming you've relaxed at least some of your privacy guards regarding tracking for something as innocuous as tagging photos with where they were shot or finding available Wi-Fi nearby.

Click on Settings, then Privacy, then Location Services. Scroll down to Services, click, then scroll to Frequent Locations and click again.

What you're likely to see is a list of areas you have visited with your phone. As you continue to dig deeper, clicking on one thing or another from there on, you may find more and more detailed information.

Look! Here's a map showing where you were. Oh boy! There's a list of the exact times you were there and for how long.

A private detective or secret police organization couldn't do a much better job of tailing you.

Public opinion is split as to whether Apple should help the FBI with its San Bernardino terror investigation. The difficulty of battling the Islamic State group and others who mean to do us harm is real. So too is concern about personal privacy.

Seeing a small bit of the information passively gleaned about you hidden inside your phone should give you an idea of what Apple doesn't want to help the government get, and why it's fighting in court.

No matter which side of the fight you pick, it may give you pause how much of your information you want to share no matter what brand of smartphone you use.

A lot of the data stays on the device unless you actively approve it being shared. But the utility of apps such as GPS maps showing the fastest route home or the best restaurant within walking distance wears down resistance.

Speaking for myself, I relaxed hard-line privacy settings over time for specific benefits on a few apps and soon forgot about it. I don't have a complete mapping of my movements, but what I have is an eye-opener.

Those who collect this sort of data and try to make use of it would rather we didn't think of how much they know and what they can do with it.

But virtually every website and app that wedges itself into our everyday lives can know our routines, predilections and spending habits, sometimes better than we do ourselves.

You're not a terrorist or criminal, but look at that iPhone mapping again. It's just one small part of the picture it has.

If the federal investigators can force Apple to help it get that information today, do you worry that the Internal Revenue Service might seek help tomorrow?

Litigants in a case against you?

Your employer?

Hackers?

You may have forgotten, but China state broadcaster CCTV in 2014 charged that, with this location tracking, Apple posed a threat to that nation's security.

When China publicly announces there's potential for spying on people and their movements with a product, it should tell you two things.

One, the iPhone's location data absolutely can be used for just that purpose.

Two, China almost surely devoted an army of specialists in a bid to break the code, just as it has devoted specialists to ever-more sophisticated hacking, cyberspying and other digital disruption and gamesmanship.

The feds, who have their own experts, have cast Apple's resistance as a move to pump up its brand. Apple has protected its own interests in the name of serving its consumers on occasion, as many businesses have. But the feds have their own branding issues.

The world today is as image-conscious as it is precarious. Companies, nations, terror groups all trade on how they're perceived. To not be conscious of it and protect it does not bode well for the future.

While it defies U.S. government, Apple abides by China's orders — and reaps big rewards While it defies U.S. government, Apple abides by China's orders — and reaps big rewards Apple, which The New York Times reported is working to develop an encrypted iPhone even more difficult to break into, may be worried about how weakening its privacy protections will affect its prospects both at home and around the world. But so too should the United States.

"If those of us in positions of responsibility fail to do everything in our power to protect the right of privacy, we risk something far more valuable than money," Apple CEO Tim Cook said at a cybersecurity conference last year, which NPR noted was also attended by President Barack Obama. "We risk our way of life."

The U.S. government has its own "risk our way of life" argument, of course, trying to swat away civil liberty questions that extend even to whether the First Amendment covers digital code.

So either way, this is pitched as a fight for mom, the flag and, well, apple pie.

Whatever ambivalence you may feel, however, there's a very good chance your phone already knows where you stand.

philrosenthal@tribpub.com