Text messages are being used more and more in criminal investigations and now police are asking for greater access to them.
Several organizations that represent police and prosecutors all over the United States are lobbying Congress to change federal privacy laws.
Part of the changes would be a requirement that cell phone providers would have to keep text messages for two years in case the information is needed in a criminal investigation.
According to a report in Wired magazine, AT&T and T-Mobile discard messages immediately. Verizon keeps them for five days and Sprint keeps them for 12.
Robert Sciliano, a Boston-based online security expert for McAfee said privacy is one issue and cost is another.
"Companies like AT&T and Verizon would have to hold our data," said Sciliano. "Employees would also have access to that data as well."
Currently law enforcement officials do not need a warrant to access cell phone records. In most cases, carriers simply hand the information over.
The law enforcement groups lobbying for this have not said publicly whether they want the entire message saved or just the timestamp with the senders' and receivers' phone numbers displayed.
