Cooper's reasoning puts a novel spin on the same, tired "The police can't do their jobs unless tech companies do it for them" argument. This time, he used human trafficking as the boogeyman that needs defeating and which can only be accomplished if the government has unfettered, disk-level access to its citizens' cell phones.

"If you're a bad guy [we] can get a search record for your bank, for your house, you can get a search warrant for just about anything," Cooper told ArsTechnica. "For the industry to say it's privacy, it really doesn't hold any water. We're going after human traffickers and people who are doing bad and evil things. Human trafficking trumps privacy, no ifs, ands, or buts about it." Apparently human trafficking also trumps the 4th Amendment as well.