Many telephone companies are simply deleting text messages because they claim they do not have the capacity to store them. Depending on the company, deletion occurs anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Police departments are complaining that it is hampering their ability to build cases because the evidence they believe they need has been deleted.

“Anytime I can’t get enough information to solve a case, that’s an issue for me,” said Brance Johnson, special-agent supervisor of the computer-crimes unit of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification & Investigation.

Sometimes, by the time authorities realize that they need to see text messages and try to get subpoenas or court orders seeking them, the messages are gone, Johnson said.

Still, he acknowledged that no company has unlimited storage space for these trillions of texts floating around.

In 2008, thousands of sexually explicit text messages exposed an affair and kicked off the rapid downfall of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. The messages between Kilpatrick and his chief of staff were retrieved from city-issued pagers.

At the time, it had people across the country talking about how text messages could come back to haunt you. But that was then.

Now, the sheer volume of the messages makes tracking them a problem, experts say.

People could always keep the messages on their phones, of course, and the texts will exist as long as the phone does.

But, as far as the phone companies are concerned, a message sent and received is as good as gone.

“We don’t keep them. Period,” said Jason Gertzen, a spokesman for Sprint.

Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Nancy Stark wouldn’t discuss specifics but said text messages are stored by the company “for a very, very limited period.”

Individuals and privacy advocates do not like the idea of anyone keeping their text messages. It is a form of privacy that most do not believe should be invaded. Text messages, to many, are the same as a short telephone call. It’s private and records of it should not be kept without explicit court order.

If, however, we consider the AT&T fiasco as well as European data retention laws, it’s not too far-fetched to envision a time in the near future when all text messages will be stored for many months to years.