To invoke Godwin’s Law right at the start here (because it would be guaranteed to come up anyway), yeah, um.. there’s really no way to interpret this other than a Nazi state maneuver or outright being Orwellian. Take your pick, because both apply.

Warrantless wireless spying by the US government on anyone for any reason is basically here to stay. As this article states it best, “…warrantless spying has become a staple of American life.”

That’s pretty sad.

Those who use the useless “I have nothing to hide!” response don’t even have a leg to stand on here (not that they did in the first place), because warrantless spying means that even if you are truly doing nothing wrong, a reason can be invented to monitor you and yours.

How does localtion tracking work with cell phones?

Given that this is something you’re just going to have to deal with, you might as well known how it works.

What’s that ticking noise?

If you take your cell phone and put it next to a microphone and crank up some gain on that mic (the gain will need to be significant), every few minutes you’re going to hear something that sounds like some sort of electronic interference with a pattern to it; it will sound like “tick tick-a-tick tick tick tick-a-tick tick”. What you hear there is your cell phone sending out a beacon to the nearest cell tower. Contained in that beacon is the exact or near-exact location of where the cell phone currently is.

Side note: If you’ve ever heard that noise come from your computer, it wasn’t from the computer. It was probably becase your cell phone was sitting there next to your computer speakers (they typically have crappy shielding) and the beacon your cell phone sent out was picked up by the speaker’s magnet.

Another side note: If you happen to own an electric guitar, you can hear the ticking beacon noise from a cell phone really easily since the guitar pickups themselves are microphones. Plug in the guitar to an amplifier, add in some distortion or overdrive, turn guitar’s volume to 10, then just put the guitar on a stand and “mount” the cell phone under the strings next to the pickups. In a few minutes… TICK TICK-A-TICK TICK TICK-A-TICK will come blaring right through.

What’s important to note here is that presently, location tracking via cell phone beacons is not real-time. And the only reason why it’s not that way is because it would drain the cell phone’s battery too quickly. When using a standalone GPS plugged into your car’s cigarette lighter port, yes, that unit has true real-time tracking because it has a continuous feed of power to do it (this also explains why car GPSes have such poor battery life in general). As for the phone, a location beacon is only sent out in intervals because of battery life limitations.

Does turning off your cell phone stop the beacon from being broadcast?

It used to, but on most newer phones it doesn’t. On most newer handsets, when you turn your phone “off”, it’s not really powered off but rather in a sleep state (very similar to a PC or laptop’s sleep state). The phone is actually still on and still sending out its beacon every few minutes. If you ever wondered why just about all phones have the “instant-on” feature when you hit the power button, now you know why; the phone was never truly turned off.

The only sure way to stop a cell phone from sending out a beacon is to take the battery out. And if you happen to have one of those phones where the battery cannot be removed (*cough* iPhone *cough*), the only way to stop the beacon is to completely run the battery down.

Should you freak out?

I find that the only time people freak out when it comes to surveillance is when they’re not aware of it.

Now that you are aware of it, there’s really no reason to freak out.

On a final note, yes cell phone beacon tracking can be used for good. If your phone was made in 2005 or later, it has “Phase 2″ E911 in it. The E911 service is a great help to both you and 9-1-1 dispatch for determining location information quickly and effectively.

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