If the police arrest you, do they need a warrant to rifle through your cellphone? Courts have been split on the question. Last week in yet another power-grab attempt, the Obama administration asked the Supreme Court to resolve the issue and allow warrantless cellphone searches of Americans by police and government agencies.

This expands the outrage and worry from privacy and civil liberty groups who point to the recent illegal NSA snooping revelations and attempts like this from the Obama administration as clear examples of government overstep and intrusion.

A July Washington Post-ABC News poll found 70 percent of Democrats and 77 percent of Republicans said the NSA’s phone and Internet surveillance program intrudes on some Americans’ privacy rights. This doesn’t bode well for politicians like 2016 presidential hopeful Chris Christie who praised government snooping and slammed pro-privacy candidate Rand Paul for questioning it.

Democrats and Republicans who did see intrusions were about equally likely to say they were “not justified:” 51 and 52 percent respectively. Nearly six in 10 political independents who saw intrusions said they are unjustified.

Obama’s disregard for privacy and continued attempts to spy on Americans without due process or warrants conjures up descriptions of a big-brother-is-watching type of government portrayed in the book, “1984” by George Orwell. The real-life version is, perhaps, even scarier.

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