Having been a gov’t phone-manager/purchaser in my past...I will attest that upon the conclusion of the service/phone life....a new phone is procured and the old phone is usually destroyed in some manner. Some folks may think that’s the end of their text business for the past two years....but your message passed through a server somewhere, and that message content will still exist, if you wanted to dig through things.
People may want to wink-wink....but the server still holds the text.
Really. Anyone who has watched a true crime channel for a few hours knows that if TPTB want to see your text messages — forever — they can get them. Smashing, drowning, running over, or removing a battery from, a phone is futile.
One of the reasons I love FR. Whatever the subject there is always a FReeper with first-hand knowledge.