[cgshaw]

I said rooted in officer safety, not solely because, ;-).

Even if the search happens AFTER the arrest (assuming it's lawful, without that there is no internal link to a legal search), the court is still going to look at whether the seized item was taken incident to the arrest. That's why trunk's can't be searched unless there is a "particularized" reason, i.e. drugs, contraband, other evidence of the specific crime for which the offender was arrested for.

Under that line of reasoning, it's pretty likely courts would be ok with thumbing through the offender's call history to find other possible offenders for the related crime.

Not saying it's right, but that's how the law is evolving on evidence collection. Truth is, we need much deeper analysis on the technology at hand, but our courts are OLDDDDDDDD. Not saying octogenarians can't make effective re: technology, but it certainly hasn't bore out that way yet.