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Couple of points for added interest.
The average law enforcement officer will not risk his/her career on doing a "bad" search, or one that is even questionable for that matter. That being said, even if this device makes it into patrol cars, I suspect many of the officers will use this sparingly, as the circumstance will most likley lead to a law suit and then intense scrutiny and investigation.
It is also highly doubtful that police officers, let alone State Patrol officers will WANT (on an individual level of decision making provided to each patrol officer with the concept of discretion) to use this device on "routine" traffic stops as this article would have you believe. The reasoning behind this is, from an officer's perspective, that the more time spent on a stop increases the potential danger to the officer and the vehicle/occupant because while detained or stopped, taking the extra time to secure the phone, perform the search, determine if you "have anything" and then walk to and fro the vehicle added times to return the item, increases the potential of something bad happening to which the officer will be held responsible as it is our duty to provide care, custody, and control of subjects while interacting with them. (this is by large a universal standard) In summary, we want to have traffic stops take as little amount of time as possible, not fiddle around with cell phones just to scare occupants. A sidenote : state patrol are one of the few police institutions that have actual "quotas" and need to write X amount of "routine" tickets a day (contrary to popular belief, many municipal and medium sized departments do not have quotas) so wasting time with examining cell phones is not likely to be a big concern on minor traffic violations where there exists no other evidence of any other crime being/having been committed and where time is of the essence.
Next, it was mentioned that these devices do not need to be in patrol officers cars. Who do you think we (the police) send to do telephone harrasment investigations, asses the seriousness of written threats (relayed now through media such as text or facebook which is now phone accessible) or gain evidence to arrest and prosecute cases such as domestic violence? A detective? No sir, the standard patrol officer or beat cop, who in some areas that cannot afford police departments, happens to be state patrol officers. Remember, through the course of our duties, we are serving to PROTECT your interests as a law abiding citizen, not to try to figure out what you do in your private life...unless we have good articulate reason to believe you recently committed or are about to commit a crime.
As I stated previously, this device could be usefull for an investigative tool that could greatly aid in the performace of an officers duty and overall effectiveness. I would be against this IF michigan state patrol directly states that they want to search every cell phone on a traffic stop with out probable cause with this device...but they have not done so, mereley an outside source not being MSP (the newspaper article) has made that proclamation for them about something that has yet to hit the streets yet.
I hope this provides context from "the other side" and if anyone has questions, ill do my best to awnser them. Also it is important to state that I work for an Ohio agency, so while law enforcement is the same in duty, the job is done differently every where. Thanks for having me on this site and I apologize for the long winded explanation. HTH and happy easter to everyone on this board and thier families.
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