GOV'T. TRACKING CELL PHONES WITHOUT COURT ORDER

[UpInArms]

http://www.newswithviews.com/BreakingNews/breaking40.htm

Summary: Turn on your cell phone and you give government agencies instant information about your location, and even your speed of travel. It may not be long before you get a speeding ticket in the mail, or police at your door.

KANSAS CITY, MO. -- Drivers with cell phones are being tracked in a new government program designed to monitor the location and speed of cell phones in vehicles moving along Missouri highways.

The state of Missouri has entered into a $6.2 million contract with National Engineering Technology Corporation (NET) to track cell phone users, without their permission.

The first test of the system is now under way in Kansas City and St. Louis, according to published reports. The high-tech, government authorized spy network is operated by NET and Delcan, a Canadian company. The two are owned by ITIS Holdings, a British company.

Cell phone tracking is also taking place in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Norfolk, Va., Atlanta and Macon, Ga. Vehicles with E-ZPass or FasTrak toll transponder payment systems are also easily tracked by government agencies in a similar way.

...more...

and from the previous article:

GOV'T. WINS COURT AUTHORIZATION TO SPY ON CELL PHONE USE

January 3, 2006
NewsWithViews.com

Summary: Despite three court rulings that cell phone tracking by government agencies without a court order is illegal, a fourth court ruling has now authorized blanket spying. The government can now use cell phone data to track physical location, without a search warrant or probable cause.

NEW YORK -- A federal court issued an opinion permitting government agencies to use cell phone data to track a cell phone's physical location, without a search warrant based on probable cause.

The ruling seems to be in line with recent revelations about President Bush authorizing secret, warrantless wiretaps. The court opinion on Dec. 20, 2005 went largely unnoticed by the media or the public, but may have major ramifications on privacy rights and issues.

Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein of the United States District Court, Southern District of New York issued the opinion, despite three previous rulings to the contrary by other judges. There is no party to appeal, so the ruling paves the way for government agencies in all states to begin cell phone tracking without legal difficulty.

There was only one party in each case that was rejected by other courts, the same party in the case that was given approval -- the Department of Justice. The DOJ did not appeal the cases it lost, and there is no party to appeal the case it won.

...more...

[Cooley Hurd]

1. Businesses can already do this with company cell phones...

I know it was an option with our cell phones when we signed on with Verizon (thankfully, the boss declined).

K&R :thumbsup:

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. Turn it off except for when you need it..... simple. Retrieve messages

when you want.... "or" let your carrier pidgeon take it for a ride once in awhile... imagine the confusion when they realize you can "fly".

[shance]

8. Totally irrelevent if its off or on. They can still track you.

n/t

[RC]

10. How?

If it is off it is off. It can't be tracked.

http://www.tinhat.com/cell_phone/tracking.html
Mobile phones: your own personal tracking beacon

When your mobile phone is switched on, your cellular network provider knows exactly where you are in the world to within a hundred metres or so.

Similar technology is used to track down lost aircraft and yachts through their radio beacons. It's not identical, because most radio beacons use satellites and cell phones use land-based aerial arrays, but the principle is the same.

At any one time, your phone is usually able to communicate with more than one of the aerial arrays provided by your phone network. They're ten or twenty kilometers apart (less in cities) and it's usually within range of at least three of them. So by comparing the signal strengths and time lags for the signals at each station, your network can triangulate your position and work out where you are.

* * * * * *

[Auntie Bush]

3. This country is getting to be really scary. We can all kiss the

Constitution good by as it's null and void. Is this the kind of Freedom
our soldiers are dying for?

[Rainscents]

4. I don't own cell phone, no plan for ever getting one either!

[Rainscents]

5. I don't own cell phone, no plan for ever getting one either!

[Vinnie From Indy]

6. Put your Cell on the end of a four foot rope

and swing it as fast as you can. I believe you could easily get it up over a hundred miles and hour. Try and make it come to dead stop and then swing it around again. Try throwing it as high as you can repeatedly and they will think you are Superman. They'll think you are Superman or something.

[Rainscents]

7. ROFL

:rofl:

[MadHound]

9. Double edge swords those technologies of convience

Tracked by your cell phone, tapped by your OnStar, ID theft via credit card info, people wonder why I'm something of a Luddite. No credit cards, no cell phone, no OnStar, and seriously thinking about sticking with non computerized vehicles(since your driving info can now be downloaded from your car). No, no, none of this, really . Even a computer is double edge sword, thus my ambivalence about it. 1984 is becoming our new reality, and the great mass of consumers buy into it because of "convience", or "emergencies" or peer pressure, or because it is the latest, greatest thing. Willingly we put our shackles on, gladly we submit, our society PAYS the corporations to invade our personal lives.

Wake up, look around. You don't need these things, really. People have lived for decades with land lines and being out of touch at times. Is it really that tough to read a map when you're lost in your car? Think, please. Evaluate each and every tech out there, look at how it can be used against you, for you know as well as I do, somebody in either the corporate sector, government, or both certainly is, and will act on it.