Posted on 07/05/2026 1:25:32 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
U.S. policy used to jam up GPS. Now, those signals beam into your pocket.
Shortly after the burst of the dot-com bubble in 2000, a new type of Silicon Valley start-up began to crop up: companies specializing in GPS chips. At the time, GPS — the Global Positioning System, a constellation of satellites that provide location and time to receivers on Earth, courtesy of the American taxpayer — was still relatively niche for everyday people.
This small handful of companies was founded on the basis of two gambles. One was that, like any other chip, GPS chips — at the time, about the size of a postage stamp — would continue to get smaller and more powerful. The other was that GPS could fulfill a recent — and technically challenging — government order: make mobile phones trackable when calling emergency services.
Landlines were already trackable. Every landline phone number in the United States was linked to a database of addresses, which enabled dispatchers to know where to send ambulances or other emergency vehicles if an emergency caller hung up or didn’t know where they were.
Mobile phones available at the time didn’t have this capability, and by 1999 the Federal Communications Commission had issued a diktat: By 2001, mobile phones had to transmit a location when they called 911.
In the late 1990s the most obvious way to locate a mobile phone was to use triangulation from mobile phone masts, using the timing of the phone signals. But because the signals are traveling across the ground — rather than beamed down unobstructed from space — they can encounter all kinds of obstacles en route, making their location less accurate.
The runner-up method was GPS. Although this was more accurate — besides sending signals from orbit, GPS satellites also contain highly accurate...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
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Rejoice! The government knows where you are! Always...
I’ve often wondered if the “Mark of the Beast” doesn’t look like an apple someone has taken a bite out of?
Contrary to popular belief, the government doesn’t usually care where you are.
Often thot that myself
Until they do.
,,, good one - I’d never figured that out.
Leave your phone behind when you go to knock someone off.
“Leave your phone behind when you go to knock someone off.”
Doesn’t work where I live due to License Plate Cameras that flood our town.
I’m made of metal
My circuits gleam
I am perpetual
I keep the country clean
Walk and wear a Jason Vorhees hockey mask to fool the facial recogntion cameras. 🤡
I have to laugh. I have a family member in law enforcement who has spent many hours listening to wiretaps. It is literally days of listening to the most mundane stuff to maybe catch someone saying something stupid.
No, for the most part, the government doesn’t care about you. But if they take an interest in you, there is very little you can do to stop them from crawling up inside you. So its best to keep them bored with you.
It is so dreary to have to walk there and back. Previous centuries had their perks.
I see what you are obviously doing there.
Everybody doesn’t have a tin can to use to carry their phone?
My philosophy exactly.
I had a friend who used to rattle his mouth like he was being courted by various militia movements. Then he abruptly stopped it. I asked him about it. He response was something like, "You have no idea how much money the government can spend on you if they take some interest in you".
An obvious application for AI.
My son-in-law was head of the sheriff’s department and he always knew where his dog was. and who knows who else.
In a game where the gov’t loves to play wac-a-mole, it’s an easier life to just not pop up too often.
Just wait until they make using some sort of Faraday blockage illegal on smartphones. Apparently, blocking your phone this way can be construed as "intent for illegal activities." Given the direction our country is going, this would not surprise me.
Leave your device at home unless you absolutely need to have it with you. The price of convenient is an increase in risk-taking.
We have to give credit where due: Initially GPS accuracy was intentionally degraded for non-military users, a “feature” called Selective Availability or SA. Bill Clinton ordered it turned off in 2000 and it’s been off since. Previously the accuracy for civilian users would have been no better than +/- 300 ft. which would have made it virtually useless for most of the things it’s used for today. Clinton understood the potential of GPS and despite objections from ‘experts’ - he pulled the plug on SA and set the stage for innovation.
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