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If they need your iPhone address book they can get a search warrant.

While I agree that's our right as protected by the 4th, some states have determined that only probable cause is required to confiscate and search cell phones (e.g. California). In those states refusing to consent will not help (except of course if you plan on taking the case to SCOTUS).

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Curious, what about password protected cellphones?

"Sure officer, here's my phone, you're welcome to fiddle with the password screen until you wipe the device."

In the article, it said that the device used could extract data regardless of whether the phone was password-protected or not. Looks like it's time to start encrypting our cellphone data as well.

To clarify, I was curious about California's situation.

I don't recall any mention of the specific methods used in California, but in this case the officer took the phone when he arrested the person, so presumably the police had quite a long time to muck about with it. Here is one of the original articles covering the California Supreme Court ruling:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/01/warrantless-...

But probable cause is still not the same as searching everybody. If you refuse consent, you can challenge in court whether they really had probable cause.

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