The Raw Story | US now allowing feds to track Americans by cell phone
Is that a cell phone in your pocket, or are you just happy to be under surveillance? That’s the question we need to ask, after Feds are more regularly using our own cell phones to track us. It’s not hard to do. They can ‘ping’ us and see which cell phone towers are nearest. By triangulating the response times, they can pinpoint us to within a few feet.
The problem is that courts are routinely granting requests by Feds without also requiring probable cause. And if they’re doing this, who knows what else they’re getting away with in the name of stopping terrorism or crime?
Did you know, for example, that your cell phone could be turned into an active listening device? With a minor software change, your phone can be made to dial out or receive a call without informing you. Did you know that companies like AT&T and Verizon have basically admitted that they gave (or give) your caller information, your circle of friends, to the government without requiring a court order?
And for those of you who say, "if I did nothing wrong…" well, tell that to the guy who got "rendered" to Syria and tortured for months for doing nothing wrong. Tell that to the guy who tried to legally emigrate to the US but got sent home because his relative reported him as a terrorist. Tell that to any victim of our famous "no fly lists" who are routinely persecuted at airports because their last name showed up on a list, though they themselves did nothing wrong.
Until the government can show enough responsibility to investigate crimes without violating our civil rights, I’d much rather see law enforcement work overtime to do its job with handcuffs on than give up the essential freedoms that they claim to be protecting.
