surveillance society

My wife is a big fan of true crime tv shows. If I ever go missing, my body will never be found.

Today the one she was watching covered murders at a Starbucks in D.C. This was surprising, as it wasn’t the coffee that killed the poor employees of the store.

In any case, the local police couldn’t come up with much, so they asked the FBI for help. The FBI is prohibited from working on state matters, but since D.C. is a federal zone, it was ok. They specifically stated that this was a bonus because they could bring manpower and surveillance technology to the table.

While this turned out to be a good thing in this case, it made my hair stand up. Surveillance technology. You know - wiretapping, bugs, that sort of thing.

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Last night I was listening to my scanners and heard a yellow alert coming over the national frequency. As the story developed, it turned out some guy had kidnapped his child and taken off, allegedly armed.

They had an alleged location on him and were searching. The most important fact here was that they were tracking him via the GPS in his cell phone.

That’s right, folks, the latest cell phones feature everyone’s favorite new technology: gps. It wasn’t enough that your approximate location could be determined by triangulating the signal between cell towers; now you can be found down to within the radius of the gps in your cell phone.

It would behoove you to check whether your phone has a gps in it. If so, check to see if it can be disabled manually. If not, check online to find out if anyone has figured out how to disable it on their own. If not, turn the thing off when you’re not making a call (and hope it can’t be remotely activated).

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How about that Onstar system? You know, the one in your car where you can call for assistance, directions, or if you’re in an accident.

It can be remotely activated. I am not kidding you. It is already being used to eavesdrop on drivers by law enforcement agencies. What better tool than a bug in your car that hears everything you say?

There was a recent court case involving spying on someone via Onstar. The law enforcement agency came up with all sorts of incriminating evidence by this method and it looked bad. The enterprising defense lawyer got the evidence thrown out due to a federal law. The law states that no one may interrupt any emergency communication for any reason. Since Onstar was being used as a listening device, the driver couldn’t use it in an emergency. Case closed.

Of course there are always red light cameras, street corner cameras, NSA phone/fax/email spying, as well as foreign surveillance. I suppose it just depends on who you prefer spying on you….