It looks like the California Supreme Court has
decided that police do not need a warrant to search you text messages. Now I'm not a criminal or anything, but a quick review of my phone makes it pretty clear that there are a lot of texts that I would rather some random cop not see. Not to mention that I live in a state where it's illegal to text while driving. And yeah, that's probably a good law. Which is why, on those very rare occasions when I feel like I just
have to text someone while in the car, I use Androids helpful voice to text ability.
But if you, like me, would prefer that the cops not read through all your pro-marijuana legalization texts (or those texts setting up a date with that cute guy you met on OKCupid), there are a couple of Android Apps that can help you with your, ahem, little problem.
First, if you want to make sure that you still have the messages for future
blackmail reference, there's a cool app called
Backup to Gmail that will save your SMS, MMS, and even your call log to, you guessed it, your Gmail account. While this might not be the greatest option for any serious criminals, at least one
recent court decision would seem to offer some legal protection for email accounts. This app is $1.99, but it's worth it worth it for me just to have a backup of my texts in a place that I go to fairly frequently anyways, and don't have to remember yet
another password for.
Once you've got those texts safely backed up, the app that might come in most useful when you see those flashing lights in the rear view mirror is
Advanced Android Cleaner. This nifty little app lets you wipe your texts, browser history (are searches for Two Girls, One Cup a crime?) and call history. If you don't want to cough up the $1.50, something like
Autowipe combined with actually using a PIN might be just as useful.
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