USA: You should expect Big Brother to track your phone

In a frightening new decision, a federal appeals court says that you have no expectation of privacy when the police want to track your location using your cell phone. U.S. v. Skinner, Case No. 09-6497.

The court said that the police don’t need to bother getting a warrant if they want to stalk you by using the GPS signal in your cell phone. This means that sheriffs can freely track Latinos who could be undocumented, the police can see which political meetings you attend, and the cops can learn whether you go to a church or a synagogue.

In a ruling that is right out of the pages of George Orwell’s 1984, the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio, blithely ruled that police efficiency and convenience overrides your right to be free of electronic spying. The case in question involved a marijuana bust, but the ruling applies to the 85% of adults who own a cell phone, a dashboard navigation device and many iPads.

Cell phones keep sending a signal several times a minute even though they are turned off. The only way to stop the GPS signal from a cell phone is to take out the battery, which is nearly impossible for the 75 million consumers who own an iPhone.

via Larry Bodine: Big Brother Could Definitely Be Tracking Your Cell Phone.