phonetics

So the Supremes have ruled that police need a warrant to search a smartphone.  Or any cell phone, I guess.  I don't have a smartphone; I have a dumb phone: all it has on it are my phone calls.  Part of the reason I don't have a smartphone is I don't want to entrust so much of my life to one little gadget easily stolen or lost.  I still use a physical datebook/address book, and it's tough enough keeping track of that.  Apparently cops could search that, but not if I entrusted it all to a smart phone.  But what about a tablet computer, like my Nook Color?  I use that for e-mail and web browsing when I'm on a trip, but I leave the e-mail on the server and I don't store the password.

Recently there's been much talk of installing kill switches on smartphones.  Perhaps through ignorance of smartphones, I have some questions about how this works, some matters I find baffling.  I brought one of these up on an online comments section, and was told the question was stupid.  It may be stupid, but I still don't know the answer.

( And the questions are ... )