This method of spying already has a catchy nickname—"roving bug." The FBI's use of it came out in a New York court case in December.

In an opinion ruling that the “roving bug” was legal, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan noted that the eavesdropping technique “functioned whether the phone was powered on or off.”

US v Tomero, No. S2 06 Crim.0008(LAK).11/ 27/06.

The Kaplan opinion, picked up by Declan McCullagh of CNet in December, revealed that the “roving bug” technique had been approved by top U.S. Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family.

The technique had been known for several years, but this was the first time the government ever publicly admitted using it.

According to CNet, an article in the Financial Times last year warned business execs that mobile providers can “remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner's knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call.”

So when you want privacy, remove your cellphone batteries and ask your companions to do the same.

As an added incentive, the damn things will stop ringing for awhile.

The price of power

CNet explains that modern cellphones are vulnerable in the same way as computers because they actually are “miniature computers.”

Betsage, a website devoted to the online gambling industry, recalled the FBI’s use of “key loggers” to break computer codes used by illegal gamblers in the 1990s. By 2001, not only could the the FBI read computer key strokes from the Internet, it’s “a routine feat for hackers today.”

Since 1994 the Feds have pushed through a series of new laws and regulations requiring phone, computer, and internet companies to make it easier to listen in as we plot mischief against them.

The CNet story mentions a 2004 BBC report on spy agencies’ “routine” use of cellphones which, “sitting on the desk of a politician or businessman, can act as a powerful, undetectable bug, enabling them to be activated at a later date to pick up sounds even when the receiver is down.”

James M. Atkinson’s Granite Island Group is a Boston-area consulting firm to “hunt spies, stop espionage, and plug leaks.” Betsage quotes him as saying, “These are very powerful phones, but all that power comes with a price. By allowing ring tones and stock quotes and all this other stuff, you also give someone a way to get into your phones.”

Government snoopers can also the “dashboard communications systems” installed in new cars, and the sound and camera features built into new computers.

And what of the massive proliferation of RFID “spychips” in drivers’ licenses, MBTA Charlie Cards, and consumer inventory control? Our City Councils and Boards of Aldermen merrily “wire up” their constituents with wi-fi technology which, like the power celly we are addicted to, also has a price.

Who imagines that these technologies will ever be abused by our old Uncle Sam, facing the social consequences of global warming and resource depletion in the years ahead?

More technological mischief

A new corporate think-tanks report says that “data mining” by government spy agencies is very dangerous and not very useful. Data mining uses computer programs to profile millions of people based on information harvested from your medical, bank and credit records, schools and employers.

The “statistical likelihood of false positives is so high that predictive data mining will inevitably waste resources and threaten civil liberties,” according to the report’s co-authors, Jim Harper of the libertarian Cato Institute and Jeff Jonas of IBM.

A wide range of groups are protesting use of data mining by Homeland Security's “Automated Targeting System,” a federal database that creates secret terrorist ratings on tens of millions of American citizens.

"Jonas and Harper, Policy Analysis: Effective Counterterrorism and the Limited Role of Predictive Data Mining": http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6784

"The CNews cellphone story": http://news.com.com/FBI+taps+cell+phone+mic+as+eavesdropping+tool/2100-1029_3-6140191.html

"The Betsage story": http://www.betsage.com/gamblingnews/15122006/isbigbrother.htm

"Electronic Frontier Foundation": http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/CALEA/

"Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), Washington lobbyists": http://www.epic.org/