(Photo: Comcast)

What's in your inbox? Some risque dirty talk? Maybe a handful of regretful messages about how hammered you were last night? If a law enforcement-backed proposal going before a House subcommittee today gets passed, wireless companies will be one step closer to having to store all of your text messages, sexy or not.

The bill is backed by law enforcement agencies, which argue that text messages can serve as key pieces of evidence in cases, particularly related to "domestic violence, stalking, menacing, drug trafficking, and weapons trafficking." Cops want wireless companies to store your text messages so that they can have access to them in the event that any crime occurs. This is similar to a wireless provider recording phone calls and storing the audio files.

The House is working to update the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and today's hearing will focus on whether or not a bill like this one should be tacked on to the act. The Justice Department itself requested yesterday that any update to the ECPA allows the government access to Facebook messages and Twitter DMs.

How long before they're subpoenaing Snapchats?

Hullo there. (Photo: flickr.com/nate)

Hey, it's the 20th anniversary of the invention of text messaging! How shall we celebrate? How about with an attempt by law enforcement agencies to make sure they have access to your old SMS messages, in case they need to issue any search warrants?

CNET reports:

A constellation of law enforcement groups has asked the U.S. Senate to require that wireless companies retain that information, warning that the lack of a current federal requirement "can hinder law enforcement investigations."

Currently there's no standard industry practice on archiving text messages. As recently as 2010, T-Mobile (for example) wasn't saving them at all--though that doesn't mean you should use their wireless services to plan your next bodega robbery. But the Senate Judiciary Committee is currently considering possible revisions to the 1986 Electronic Communications Act, which is now woefully outdated, and cops want a requirement they (or at least the logs of who texted who when) be retained for two years.

If the measure is adopted, it'll mean carriers have to hold on to quite a bit of data: CNET says there were more than 2 trillion text messages sent in the U.S. alone over the last year.

Luckily the measure hasn't been adopted yet, so there's still time to move all communications with your drug dealer over to trained pigeons.