Increasingly, law enforcement is targeting smartphones and other mobile devices as a way to catch criminals -- with potentially disastrous implications for businesses and other organizations that rely on mobile-enabled employees.

Most recently, in a ruling last week, the California Supreme Court permits police to search cellphones and mobile devices without requiring a warrant. According to the ruling, in the event of an arrest California police have a legal right to search not just phone records, but all and data that reside on the device -- including corporate-owned data.

The actual case involved an individual, Gregory Diaz, accused of dealing Ecstasy in 2007. A Ventura County deputy sheriff arrested Diaz, who initially denied the transaction. But after searching the mobile phone and reviewing a text message string that appeared to indicate the sale of six Ecstasy pills, Diaz admitted to participating in the drug sale.

Diaz's lawyer attempted to invalidate the warrantless search on several grounds -- including the fact that as a device, a phone was not worn on the suspect's "person" (thus rendering it ineligible for search). But the , arguing that a warrantless search of devices is acceptable.

This may not seem like a big deal, at least to companies that aren't in the habit of employing drug dealers. (And let's hope yours isn't!) But shift the facts just slightly and the problem becomes evident.