I Just Grew A New Tin-Foil-Hat

Within the last couple of months two new cell phone antennas have been built in our area. We still do not have service at our home even though each of the two new towers is within just a few miles of us. Its the West Virginia terrain I suppose.

Last year I lost my cell phone. I had still had one my wife had recently retired that still worked and while it had few features it was certainly good enough for me. I took it to the store and asked them to program my number into it. This is no big deal to do and the guy could have done it but he was not allowed to do so. The reason wasn't that they were trying to sell me a new phone, it was because they were prohibited from putting any phones into service that did not have a built in GPS. This was almost two years ago. All new phones, and I would dare say that means most of the phones in service today, have the ability to identify their location in the background any time they are turned on.

Last week I started to read Orwell. Somehow in my 60 years I had not read 1984. Now I have.

When you pass by and see those cell phone towers and you feel that lump of a cell phone in your pocket, in a purse, or on your hip, just reflect for a moment how close Big Brother is today. Our Government already snatches people up off the street without charge and holds them in secret. Your Congress can't or won't protect you. Your Court can't or won't protect you.

PS: The first GPS receiver I bought (1995) cost me just under $200. I have owned a half dozen of them since and they have not been inexpensive. Now days you can get a phone for less than $25 and it has a GPS built into it. The price of that additional receiver and other technology does not seem to be included in that phone's cost. So let me ask - is someone subsidizing the cost of having a location device included in the phone? Yep, I said it. Is the Government covering the cost of putting a sort of locator bug in the pocket of every person who carrys a phone now days?

They can trace you even if the phone is off.

They can trace you even if the battery is out.

just don't give a damn or the cell phone batteries wore out.

batteries could have worn out. Then there's that missing wife of that Peterson cop...

This guy had a cellphone, and they can't find him: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-missing23nov23,1,5205278.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Or THIS missing woman? http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/story/4081484p-4681044c.html

They do have the ability to triangulate using the cellphone towers, but that's not as precise as one would like.

This article demonstrates what those things can do: http://www.clarkecountydemocrat.com/news/2007/1115/Community/022.html

In addition, newer cell phones will give E-911 GIS information so you can be found if lost. In the case of a missing person, if they made a call on a cell phone, you might be able to trace the tower that was used.

I say, if you're worried about being traced, get a tracphone and pay cash for it, or just don't use a cellphone at all.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/10/tech/main2785364.shtml
(CBS/AP) Police located a 10-year-old boy awaiting a heart transplant by using global-positioning technology to find his mother's cell phone, a technique usually used to locate criminals.

John Paul May, of Harrisville, had the successful surgery at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh on Saturday night, but came dangerously close to being passed over for the donor heart until police tracked down the boy and his mother at a university jazz festival.

"When I go to a concert, I always turn my phone down to vibrate," Sue May said on CBS News' The Early Show. "And unfortunately, this time, after the concert was over, I didn't put the volume up."

When police could not find the boy or reach him by phone, they contacted the cell phone company Sprint to get the coordinates of his mother's cell phone.

"The only time you can use it is life or death, or to track someone wanted in a homicide," state police Cpl. James Green said. Otherwise, police must get a warrant from a judge.

"That was the trooper working the desk," Green told co-anchor Harry Smith Thursday. "The trooper contacted Sprint and asked if we could track the cell phone."

Using the coordinates, state police tracked the phone to a Slippery Rock University building. Green stopped the jazz concert and announced he was looking for May and his mother, Sue.

"I announced we had to get her to Pittsburgh, to Children's Hospital, that they had a heart for her little boy," Green said.

The audience of about 500 people jumped to their feet and gave the boy a standing ovation as he left, said Steve Hawk, a music professor who conducted the concert.

"I've been in the entertainment business for 30 years and never had such an emotional, shocking event happen at something live," Hawk said.

John Paul May is "doing very well," says his mother.

"He's still in critical condition, but stable. And he's doing as good as expected at this time," Sue May said. "But that's just thanks to all the policemen. And I just thank God for them for finding us.

"Because if it wasn't for them, if we didn't get this heart, who knows if my son would have survived (until) the next heart?"

keeps the gps running even when it's turned off.
Why my battery low? I had it turned off all day.

I was about to post that same link.

On the cost, when required as a design element, it costs literally pennies to include a GPS receiver. The major cost of a GPS is in the case, computer and display, all a cell phone has to do is transmit the time values back to a central computer that can then calculate position.

-Hoot

We have done it many times in our family. With a couple different carriers. We buy phones online, some on ebay. Then you take out the SIM card in the back and go online to your carrier's site and enter the new SIM card number for your phone number. It takes maybe 10 minutes before your phone works. I don't know about the GPS. Last year my son's phone broke and he only had a few months left on his contract so we bought him a really old phone on ebay and it programmed just fine.

Last two new phones I bought the carrier sent me home with directions on how to program them online. So I can't imagine a carrier telling you this is impossible.

Get my point? It was not that it couldn't be done, I knew it could because I had it done several times. I too buy my phones on E-Bay simply because I choose not to carry a contract. The thing is the guy was not allowed, as he told me, because a Federal Law had been passed requiring that all phones put in service after a date certain had to have GPS built in. Get it? To tell the truth I don't think you could even find many phones on E-Bay right now that don't have it.

Look, a cheap GPS costs $100. A cheap phone cost $25. The cheap phone has a GPS built into it. So tell me, who is paying for the GPS? Who has an interest in putting a locater bug into the pocket of 2/3 of the people in the US?

That will explain the cost difference.

as of yet answered your question! I think you have a point. Maybe the GPS isn't as sophisticated as the gov't. would like but it seems the communication companies are working on it. I expected to read: "Oh, but if you're ever lost someone can find you"! Thanks for the heads up. It may be sometime in the future, when the technology is better, that this OP will be good to remember!

GPS, they're just using a simpler, cheaper device.

The reason isn't NEFARIOUS--it's for 911.

say. I don't think 911 is the real reason for the GPS. I have bought several cell phones over the last five years, and no one has marketed that feature. Wouldn't you think they would?

edit: GPS at the present level with cell phones is a foot in the door.....time will have to pass before we know the real answer to the question.imho

Buy yourself a toss-away track phone with cash. Swap it out any time your tinfoil starts buzzing.

This second solution,though, is foolproof: Don't buy, use or carry a cellphone.

of keeping track of someone, as the phones can be turned off with the push of a button. Cell phones are also easily gotten rid of. Take it out of your pocket and drop it. There's also the fact that my cell phone and I are often not in the same location, as I don't take it with me everywhere I go, so if someone were tracking me via my cell phone, they'd often see my cell phone in one place when my body was in another.

I don't have GPS on my phone other than the phone's ability to figure out where it is, and thus what time zone it's in, and for me, as a very frequent business traveler, that's a good thing.

I'll bet its got a GPS built into it.

It would still be an incredibly inefficient way of tracking me.

LOL!
When was the last time our goverment cared about efficiency?

You have to take the battery out to disconnect it.

For convenience. For safety. And this poster is not talking about criminals, who would toss their cell phone away, if they were going to commit a crime. He/she is talking about the government tracking the wholly uncriminal behavior of ordinary citizens.

And they now have many ways of doing that--all violations of the Constitution--which can supplement and triangulate with cell phone tracking. The FBI can enter your home and place listening devices without your knowledge and without a warrant. They can obtain your bank records, your hospital records, you library book borrowing records, your emails, your snail mails, your internet use, and all sorts of other records--ALL your records--and put a gag order on the companies or other entities that they are obtaining this information from, forbidding them to tell you, or ANYBODY--even their lawyer, even a judge--anything about it. Cell phone tracking is just one piece of the puzzle of their complete surveillance of your life. And if you are not worried about this, you oughta be.

It has NOTHING TO DO with crime or terrorists, and everything to do with controlling you and punishing you, if you get out of line POLITICALLY, in minor or major protest or non-compliance with fascist/corporate wars, fascist/corporate looting of our pocketbooks and our government treasuries, and fascist/corporate policy of every kind. They want to interdict your travel and your communications with others, and they want to able to arrest you and stop you, in a general political rebellion, or even a hint of one. They also want to be able to intimidate you, and blackmail you, to keep you from ever thinking of becoming rebellious. And I am talking about peaceful rebellion. God knows what they have planned for armed or riotous rebellion. I hope it never happens, but what do you think all these suspensions of our civil rights and "anti-terrorist" measures are all about? You think Bushites want to "keep us safe"? Har-har. They want to keep THEMSELVES safe, and they want to be able to crush every kind of rebellion, peaceful or otherwise. And the way our Democratic leaders are behaving, I have little doubt that they, too, feel they will need suspension of habeas corpus (arrest without charge, imprisonment without trial), warrantless spying, detention camps, martial law, torture and other fascist measures, to keep us in line.

It makes you wonder what they all have in mind for us, by way of MORE corporate looting and corporate resource wars.

One other thing: the phone corps have long wanted to be rid of responsibility for the infrastructure of the landline system. They used to service connections, equipment and other problems for free--until they made us dependent on telephones. Now they charge big bucks for house calls. How long is it until they dump the landline infrastructure altogether, so that anyone who wants a phone has to have a cell phone?

Just because YOU don't keep your cell phone with you at all times, doesn't by any means disprove a fascist/corporate intention to use cell phones, along with many other methods, as part of a general surveillance program. Cell phones could become almost as good as a chip in the brain, the way most people use them now.

Say you leave your cell home in your hotel room, and go off to a nightclub. First of all, if they're surveilling you, they know where you are. You have already alerted them, when you used a credit card for your airline tickets, and to pay for your room, and for the taxi or rental car to get to your hotel. What they were using your cell phone for, at that moment, is not to locate you, but to determine your next move. You called someone to meet you at the nightclub. Or you called the nightclub to find out what the cover charge was, or what musicians were playing. So now they know where you're spending the evening. Say, you're gay, and it's a gay nightclub. Or the person you're meeting there is your lover (and you are married), or is a prostitute. Now they have potential blackmail material. The next day, they CAN use your cell phone to figure out where you're going, and who you're meeting with, for whatever business you're doing.

If it's private business, they can do some corporate favors, by letting big corporations know what your little business is up to. If you're an injured party in a planned class action lawsuit against some big corporation, and you're meeting with your lawyers, they can take note of that, pass it along, and arrange further surveillance--bug your home, bug your lawyers' offices, obtain records from Kinko's on copies you make, search your home and office, find out what evidence you have. And just imagine what they can so if you are political activist, an antiwar protester or have any friends who are, an environmentalist gathering info on corporate pollution, have friends in the military who oppose attacking Iran, are visiting this particular city as a union organizer, etc., etc.

The powers of fascist/corporate surveillance, under the guise of government, are already scary as hell. That you leave your cell phone behind some of the time is irrelevant to them. It is just one component of a system to track you, and control you, with frightening potential to oppress you, and all of us.

And some day, if you find yourself in a detention camp, and can't find out why from any officials--who just laugh at your inquiries, or beat you up and put you in solitary for even asking--and somebody manages to get word to you, as to why you're in there, and it turns out to be that cell phone evidence put you at the location of a clandestine meeting of illicit weapons dealers, and you are not permitted a lawyer, to whom you can tell what happened--that your cell phone was stolen--and now you are an "enemy combatant" with no rights, will you think back to this thread, and wish you had taken it more seriously?

I know we all feel helpless and powerless against these potentially horrifying new powers asserted by what was once our government--but, please, let us not add blindness to our already great handicaps as citizens. I would never say, "Be afraid," as some people do. That just leads to paralysis. Be courageous. Be smart. Have faith in our long-standing democratic traditions, and our largely peace-minded, justice-minded, progressive American majority. Keep your eyes OPEN, and know what we are dealing with. This is not "our" government any more. Our rights as American citizens do not exist any more, in many respects, including our right to vote, which has now been taken over by rightwing corporations who are 'counting' all our votes with 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, in highly insecure and insider riggable voting machines, with virtually no audit/recount controls. And we don't know what the intention of all this new fascist policy is. Could have been just to shove the Iraq War down our throats, and thoroughly loot us. Could be worse. Could be long term oppression, with yet more fascism to come. And our best weapons against it are alertness, courage and activism. We will win our country back, in the end. I'm sure of that. And I don't underestimate the forces arrayed against us.

That's job creation.

/typin'

I bought my first one on a military base in 1995 it cost either 550 or 600, took 15-20 minutes to "locate" itself and wasn't useful for much more that a speedometer.

The GPS you buy now companies have spent millions mapping roads, EE's many hours making the units accurate, and software engineers have made the info easy to use and understand. Cell phones on the other hand have a simple GPS that mostly just pings a close position.

itemization, that YOU are paying for the GPS in the Federal and taxes on phones to provide 911 Emergency Service.

Looking at an old bill, which is the only one I have handy, I am paying:

Federal Excise Tax: $1.06
FL-State Communications Tax: .77
FL-Local Communications Tax: .60
Telecommunications Access Systems Act Surcharge: .15
Emergency 911 Charges: .50

FCC autahorized Charge for Network Access: 6.50
Federal Universal Service Harge .68

So, I'm paying taxes of $10.25 on total bill of $38.35

(I believe some of the taxes have gone up in the past year or two...)

These are monthly fees, so multiply them by 12. $123.00 per year.

How much of those federal taxes do you think might be going into spying on US citizens?

So that would seem to be an adequate funding source and more importantly it is one that is removed from the profit motive so it is different from an unseen charge for the GPS that is spread over time in the phone's cost - much like the 'deal' they give you on a phone if you buy it along with a service contract by one of the cell companies.

My first though was more on how the cost of the thing can be disguised as the phone leaves the manufacturer, that in fact maybe the cost of building the phone had been subsidized so that the consumer would never suspect it was there in the first place. After all, how many people walking around with cell phones have any idea that their location can be determined within 10 meters at any time they have it with them? Dam few would be my guess.

Here's what's more important for those who think its a silly way to see where someone is in real time. Let's say there is a Peace March in your town today and you go to it. Next week you are arrested as socially undesirable and a menace to the preservation of a calm society - the evidence against you? In GPS talk it would be called your "track' which is a cookie-crumb trail that acts as a history of where you have been - and when.

and satellites that can zero in on you from space.

fixed and will not go any more.

That's another feature of the new cell phones. I had my GPS free phone stolen, and the replacement came not only with GPS, but with the convenient "speaker phone" technology. This allows for tapping of conversations anywhere around the phone, so its not only a tracking bug, its an audio recording bug. Pretty fuckin' fantastic...But its okay. I HAVE NOTHING HIDDEN UP MY ASS. SO WHY WOULD I BE OFFENDED ABOUT SOMEBODY POKING AROUND UP THERE???

It can with the GPS chip . I did not like the phone and wanted to go back to my old one and they would not activate it because my old one had no GPS chip . Even when I turn off the new /used one it still has the time and date and a lite screen . my old one was off completely .
I only got the new/used one because I wanted a flip phone since my old one did not have that feature and I was constantly bumping speed dial by accident . I now turn off my phone and remove the battery to get it off but I don't know if the chip still reads , it may , they place chips in passports that must be on . . who knows . I wish i never got the newer phone .

Orwell's 1984 in the 21st century before you read it!