How's this for a backfire?
 

One South Florida man accused in a series of bank robbery attempts is hoping the recent revelation that the federal government is secretly keeping millions of U.S. phone records could help his defense.
...

The FBI and federal prosecutors are using cellphone records in court to try to prove that the five accused men were all nearby when the robbery attempts and planning occurred, as Moss, who is cooperating with the U.S. Attorney's Office, testified.

...

"If the government is spying on our phone calls, it can't then claim in the same breath that it won't provide those calls when it helps the defense. What's good for the goose, is good for the gander," said David Oscar Markus, a defense lawyer who blogs about the federal justice system in South Florida and first wrote about the unusual request.

The prosecution had told defense attorneys that they were unable to obtain Brown's cellphone records from the period before September 2010 because his carrier, MetroPCS, had not held on to them.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/loc...,5434900.story

Government: We only searched for, and obtained, the cell phone records after identifying the robbery suspects. We do not keep random cell phone records for no reason.

[/endstory]