Posted on 02/22/2010 12:29:24 PM PST by nickcarraway
Law enforcement is tracking Americans' cell phones in real time—without the benefit of a warrant.
Amid all the furor over the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program a few years ago, a mini-revolt was brewing over another type of federal snooping that was getting no public attention at all. Federal prosecutors were seeking what seemed to be unusually sensitive records: internal data from telecommunications companies that showed the locations of their customers' cell phones—sometimes in real time, sometimes after the fact. The prosecutors said they needed the records to trace the movements of suspected drug traffickers, human smugglers, even corrupt public officials. But many federal magistrates—whose job is to sign off on search warrants and handle other routine court duties—were spooked by the requests. Some in New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas balked. Prosecutors "were using the cell phone as a surreptitious tracking device," said Stephen W. Smith, a federal magistrate in Houston. "And I started asking the U.S. Attorney's Office, 'What is the legal authority for this? What is the legal standard for getting this information?' "
Those questions are now at the core of a constitutional clash between President Obama's Justice Department and civil libertarians alarmed by what they see as the government's relentless intrusion into the private lives of citizens. There are numerous other fronts in the privacy wars—about the content of e-mails, for instance, and access to bank records and credit-card transactions. The Feds now can quietly get all that information. But cell-phone tracking is among the more unsettling forms of government surveillance, conjuring up Orwellian images of Big Brother secretly following your movements through the small device in your pocket.
How many of the owners of the country's 277 million cell phones even know that companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint can track their devices in real time?
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
I think they call the tracking device for landlines a phone book.
LOL
POST OF THE DAY!!!
The main thing I don’t like about cell phones, is using them. They’re not comfortable to use, too small.
I don’t make enough phone calls to justify even the cheapest cell contract. Land line for me, cheap, and easy.
Cell phone calls go to a cell tower which decrypts the digital sound and sends it off unencrypted to a centralized digital network to be routed. The records of who called whom from what cell are available, and if there's a court order, a copy of the sound. National security agencies intercept phone traffic and use computers to perform voice fingerprints and generate transcripts that can be scanned for keyword combinations. Buying throw aways doesn't insure they can't figure out who someone is, just makes it a little harder, and a little more incriminating that they're up to something. It's technically possible to set up an encrypted and anonymous cell phone system using specially modified cell phones however if it became popular the Feds would likely make it illegal.
I thought I would miss our home phone but then I just turned them off and didn’t miss them a bit. I finally had our home number ported (forwarded) over to my cell phone number for a year or so for 10.00 a month. I gathered up all the phones and threw them up in the attic. I sure don’t miss the bells ringing all over the house or having to run for a phone call. I and my wife just carry our cells in our pockets. If you have poor service I would just try a different cell phone or provider.
I wouldn’t miss the home phone at all, it’s a necessary evil. One must have a phone, but the fact is the wife and I are involved in roughly one phone call a week, there isn’t a cell plan out there that makes that cost effective. I don’t want a phone in my pocket, one of the things I like about landlines is that they don’t follow me, leave home and the phone ceases to exist. I don’t have a cell service, and God willing I never will.
Well my mother in law likes her pre-paid cell phone for that same reason since it works out rather cheap for her. For chuckles you might just want to check it out.
Nope. Don’t need it, got a land line, which still gets better prices.
No, you are correct, you can’t from the iphones.
In addition, phones in most American and Canadian states are designed to broadcast their position on the so-called E911 service for emergency use. The service uses signal triangulation as well as the phone's built-in GPS (if available), and is enabled by default for all new phones. In fact, the E911 service may track the phone even when it appears to be switched off. Although this is unlikely, there is nothing to stop the phone software simulating being powered down while in fact remaining on the network. To be sure your phone is actually offline, you need to removed the battery or use a signal-blocking bag - more on this later.
At this site: MobileActive.org
I can't verify the correctness of the information given.
One thing is certain, if your cell phone is on, it can be tracked. Any action you take to render the phone un-trackable (turn it off, remove the battery, throw the phone away) will result in making the phone dead weight. You may as well take the action that guarantees that it won't transmit.
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