Cell Phone Monitoring Spy Phones to Monitor Teens.

Q. I’ve heard of devices on cell phones that can track owners’ whereabouts, and I’ve considered these for my son, age 11, and daughter, age 17.

I want my kids to have freedom and be safe, of course, but I’m not sure if cell phones alone will provide the protection I’m seeking. Plus, couldn’t a child just turn the phone off if they didn’t want the parent to trace their steps?

A. In today’s scary world, it seems as if this could be the protection parents have been looking for. Let’s say your 11-year-old son is going on a long bike ride with a friend, so they take along your cell phone just in case they need help. Not only could they call you if necessary, but with Global Positioning Systems (GPS) equipped on many mobile phones today, your son and his friend could also be located easily if they called 911. Plus, if you subscribed to an additional service, you could track the boys’ exact location from your computer.

Or consider this: If your daughter is driving herself and three friends to a concert, she could map out exactly how to locate the concert location and get back home, just by using her equipped cell phone. And with an additional software package, you could track her whereabouts for the entire evening.
Will Cell Phones Keep Them Safe? A Fallible Plan

Such tracking devices, however, have drawbacks parents need to be aware of. If the boys urgently needed help during their bike ride, it might be too late by the time someone found them. And if they wanted to, the concert-going girls could deviate from the established itinerary and go to a party after the show — they could turn off the phone or leave it in their own car and drive with someone else.

Cell phones and their accompanying programs are tools for parenting children safely today, but they not foolproof. Nothing takes the place of a well-established parent-child relationship based on love and trust. Also, parents need the confidence that their children — 10-year-olds to teenagers — have the experience and intellectual judgment to manage the environments in which they’re placed, only using the cell phone as a backup safety device.

The mobile phone is neither a babysitter nor a watchdog. Its protective uses are limited to the skill and willingness on the part of a child to carry and use it wisely. If you do decide to let your kids use these phones and devices, don’t rely solely on them for protection. Your children need you watching them — technology will never take the place of your time, attention, eyes, and ears when overseeing your child’s whereabouts.

GPS Tracking can invade your privacy but at the same time can be used as Cell Phone Spy and catch Cheating Spouses.

GPS tracking devices have a multitude of uses, most of them are mostly positive. However, global satellite positioning system devices are sometimes referred to issues of privacy, which sometimes can lead to controversy.
The fleet vehicles and GPS tracking devices
You will find that there are many small and large businesses that global positioning, the use of tracking devices to monitor the position of their vehicles. Most carriers have the ability to tell where all their vehicles at any point in time. Similarly, taxi companies and repair firms have the ability to control the position of their trucks so they can send them more efficient.
However, some people believe that this gives the companies that want to use GPS tracking devices more information than necessary about their drivers. For example, carriers have the ability to know how long it has been a truck driver on the road, when and for what period of time you stop for sleep or meals and if he did neither side trips outside the program.
Dispatcher of these companies have access to personal information of your business, such as a driver for lunch every day in the same place, and not his residence. Some people are of the opinion that this is a violation of personal privacy.
Adolescents and GPS tracking devices
There are some parents who use global positioning tracking devices for the location of his adolescence. You can download the Global Positioning System monitoring software technology for mobile phones from their teen, or you can add a global positioning system tracking device somewhere in the car. Adolescents may or may not be aware that their parents were monitored.
It is likely that some boys who believe that this and the invasion of their privacy.
GPS tracking devices and surveillance
Thought for the mind if your spouse has an affair? Curious to know what your brother-in-law is up? If you put a GPS tracking device hidden in your vehicle, at least you know where to go by car. You may need to draw their own conclusions about what they are doing there.
Many people would agree that this would be an invasion of privacy and many would be offended if he knew or suspected that the control of them. Things are a bit ‘more complicated when the police use GPS tracking devices.
Tracking Devices Global Positioning been successfully used by the police to solve crimes. An example of the conflict between serving justice and violation of privacy, for example, the police put a GPS tracking device in the car of a person suspected of being a murderess. Subjects successfully murderess as he unknowingly leads them to the grave for the victims. This is an invasion of privacy? Officials responsible for enforcing the law should be allowed to use global positioning devices to track this?
If, for example, the police need to obtain a search warrant from a judge to use a GPS tracking device in case of a private citizen can use this technology without a warrant? If the average citizen, also have the ability to use global positioning technology to monitor the device at all? Sometimes, the right to privacy and right to information are in conflict, this is a part of the time.
All the technology has ethical and moral implications that we, as individuals and society as a whole must be resolved. The right to privacy is the ethical dilemma that they are forced to face when you use GPS tracking device.

LITCHFIELD PARK, Ariz., Oct. 26 /PRNewswire/ — Retina-X Studios, LLC,

Mobile Spy Software for Blackberrys

announced today the immediate availability of MobileSpy for RIM BlackBerry
devices. Using this groundbreaking BlackBerry technology, users can silently
monitor GPS locations, incoming and outgoing text messages (SMS) and call
information of children or employees — even if activity logs are erased.
MobileSpy had already been available for the iPhone, Windows Mobile and
Symbian OS smartphones. The new version for the BlackBerry is now on the
market.

Mobile Spy runs in total stealth mode and no mentions of the program are shown
inside the BlackBerry. After the software is set up on the phone, it silently
records GPS locations every fifteen minutes. The entire text of all SMS text
messages along with the associated phone number is also recorded.
Additionally, inbound and outbound call information with duration of the call
is recorded. Immediately after activities are logged, they are silently
uploaded to the user’s private online account. Accounts can be checked online
from any web browser without needing further access to the phone.

“Mobile Spy is a priceless piece of software. After having some doubts about
honesty, this really helped set the record straight and confirmed my
suspicions,” says Derrick, a Mobile Spy user. Retina-X Studios CEO James Johns
states, “With Mobile Spy, dedicated GPS tracking devices become obsolete. The
BlackBerry can become the GPS tracking device and capture text messages and
call information at the same time. This gives parents and employers a very
effective way to monitor the locations and activities of children or
employees.”

This exclusive system helps businesses enforce their Acceptable Use Policy on
company-provided phones. The software can also monitor teen or family phones.
It gives a parent the ability to remotely monitor their child’s texting
activities by logging into a website from any web browser. Another common use
is to back up a user’s own cell activity as a record of all important text
conversations and travel details.

Turn your phone into A Spy Phone with Cell Phone GPS Tracking and Cell Phone Tappiing Capabilities.

Oct. 12–Sneaky people and technology can turn your cell phone against you.

Cell phone spyware makes it easy for someone to eavesdrop on your conversations, intercept text messages and identify your location. And you may never know it’s happening, experts say.

“You are so dead,” an electronically altered voice taunted Courtney Kuykendall from her cell phone. Courtney’s mother, Heather, told a television station that someone used spyware to terrify her daughter with harassing calls that revealed the caller knew the teenager’s location, what she was wearing and saying.

“This type of issue is almost out of an outlandish sci-fi film. The reality is that there is no question about it, it is happening,” said Robert Siciliano, chief executive officer of Web site IDTheftSecurity.com.

Oklahoma private investigators say they’re getting many requests for listening in on private conversations. But Colin Pressley of Barrington Investigations LLC in Oklahoma City and Larry Mulinix of MPI Agency in Norman said they won’t touch it.

The private investigators said most requests revolve around trying to catch cheating spouses. Other popular requests are from clients who want to ensure their phones contain no spyware.

In most instances, cell phone spyware is illegal, said FBI spokesman Gary Johnson.

The Internet contains numerous ads for cell phone spyware, with software ranging from several hundred dollars to $69.95. Ads contain claims and testimonials such as: “Catch that cheating spouse,” “I learned all I needed to know the very first night,” and “I could not believe what that boy was saying to my 13-year-old.”

Mulinix said some software creates GPS logs of where the target phone has gone. Someone can sit at home and map the phone’s location.

“If I get hold of your phone I can install this, like a SIM chip, open the door up and put this in there, and I can monitor you,” he said. “You won’t even know it.”

The investigators say they stick with legal surveillance techniques.

“You get a lot of people that call up and just want to monitor their wife or spouse. A lot of times I spend hours watching a guy late at night while I’m out there (in the car) drinking Dr Peppers and eating Twinkies,” Mulinix said. “There’s a lot of boredom interrupted by terror.”

Average people can face nearly as much terror from Internet ads that harangue viewers to buy instant downloads. Some boast that, in just minutes, downloaded spyware can begin intercepting text messages and sending text messages notifying the spy every time the target phone makes or receives calls so the spy can listen in on the phone calls.

“Until now, the most bad guys could get are phone lists and the like,” said Sujeet Shenoi, computer science professor at the University of Tulsa, “which would be fine for the National Enquirer getting Paris Hilton’s phone number.”

The celebrity became a victim of cell phone trickery in 2005. T-Mobile and the FBI reportedly launched an investigation after the contents of Hilton’s cell phone appeared online. Numbers and e-mail addresses of celebrity buddies such as Lindsay Lohan and Ashlee Simpson were apparently hacked from her cell phone.

“You’re going to see more people reveal themselves in ugly ways. Right now they’re doing it for fun. They’re doing it for stalking and harassment. And as time goes on, you’re going to see it being used more for financial gain,” Shenoi said.

Courtney Kuykendall, the Tacoma, Wash., resident whose daughter was harassed by someone using spyware, said the calls stopped last summer without police finding a suspect. She said she would like to raise people’s awareness that spyware can be used to terrify.

Cell Phone Spy can collect personal information of youand more details in your mobile through Cell Phone Spy Software.

What are spy cell phones – is it of any use to you? Yes it will prove to be very effective in your family and even at your office. You might be wondering how the spy cell phones work in your office? You must be wondering why your employee phone bills are just going over the top. The reason is because you have a dishonest employee who is taking undue advantage of the phone facility that is provided. The best way to keep a check on this is to use the spy cell phones.

These are actually normal phones that are GPRS enabled and gives you the access to see all that is happening within the phones. This privilege is because there is software that is downloaded onto the phone which enables you to actually retrieve all the details.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=izU1emzyRVA

Not only does the spy cell phones give you the details of all the calls that have been called and received but is also very good at retrieving all the messages that are sent and received. This happens in real time which means that no time is lost when the data is retrieved and sent over the internet.

This also keeps all your activities completely hidden as what is happening is not brought to the forefront. As and when the phone is switched on, the corresponding software starts its work and carries on with it all the time without a break. Hence this is completely trustworthy and can cause you great help.

If you ask the person directly you might find that he will completely refuse having done something extravagant and similar to this. But once you have the proof in front of your eyes you can clearly show them and ask them for an explanation and they are bound to provide you with all the details. If you want to progress and expand your work you need to be very shrewd and always keep a continuous watch on your employee.

Cell Phone Spy Software are now available in Blackberry and it will alow you phone taping, GPS Phone Tracking and Cell Phone Spy Capabilities so that you can apply Parental Control to your kids and Employee Monitoring to your employees.

Realizing the importance of monitoring mobile phone activities, Retina-X Studios, LLC, launched the Mobile Spy Software for smartphones. After the iPhone, Windows Mobile and Symbian OS smartphones, the company now releases the Mobile Spy software for BlackBerry devices. With the help of this cutting-edge BlackBerry technology, users can keep a track of mobile activities like GPS locations, incoming and outgoing text messages and call details even if activity records are deleted.

Running in stealth mode, this app show no signs of functioning inside the device. Once the software is installed, it secretly records GPS locations after every fifteen minutes. It also records all text messages (sent and received) with associated phone numbers. Furthermore, inbound and outbound calls with call duration are also traced. After recording these activities, this information is secretly uploaded to the user’s private account. Users can check their private accounts from any web browser. Thus, it eliminates the need to access their devices.

“Mobile Spy is a priceless piece of software. After having some doubts about honesty, this really helped set the record straight and confirmed my suspicions,” says Derrick, a Mobile Spy user. Retina-X Studios CEO James Johns states, “With Mobile Spy, dedicated GPS tracking devices become obsolete. The BlackBerry can become the GPS tracking device and capture text messages and call information at the same time. This gives parents and employers a very effective way to monitor the locations and activities of children or employees.”

It makes amazing spying software, enabling parents to keep a watch on their teenagers. A parent can login from any web browser and monitor their child’s texting and calling activities. The software also serves as a backup tool, which records all important text conversations and call information for future use.

Mobile Spy software is available at the Mobile Spy website.

http://blackberryspysoftware.com

cell phone tapping crimes.

Last week at an identity theft speech for the Department of Defense, I met two soldiers who alerted me to the new security risk of Cell Phone Tapping. SigInt (or signal interception) has long been a part of warfare and espionage. But the possibilities erupt with the advent of cell phone tapping. Imagine the conversation of a soldier being overheard by the enemy – deployment details, troop locations, command structure, strategic and tactical information. The prospect is terrifying for our national security.

This week, I was asked to help with a case of domestic abuse: the husband had installed Cell Phone Tapping Software (like computer spyware or keyloggers) on his wife’s phone prior to their divorce. During the divorce proceedings, he listened to every conversation, read every email and text sent from her phone, and could even control her calendar and applications (thanks to iPhone Tapping Software). Because of GPS tracking, he always knew where she was. When she switched to a new phone number and iPhone, iTunes must have synced the malicious software to the new phone along with all of the legitimate programs – allowing the abusive husband access to the new phone and continue stalking her. Cell phone tapping software allows the user to perform all of these tasks without your ever knowing it:

* Silently record the entire text of all SMS text messages (allowing them to read all of your incoming and outgoing text messages)
* Log information about each call (so that they know who you called, when and for how long)
* Provide actual GPS positions (so that they know where you are anytime your phone is on)
* Receive a text message when someone uses the cell phone so that the spy can call in and listen to everything being said (every conversation you have can be overheard and recorded)
* Turn the cell phone into a remote listening device, even when the phone is not open or in use (allowing the spy to listen in on conversations anytime your cell phone is near)
f you are having trouble viewing the video, or want to see it in the original, please view their entire news story on Cell Phone Tapping.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCyKcoDaofg

Tapping a cell phone is quite easy with the right software (which can be purchased very inexpensively and legally). You see, the software was designed for “legitimate” purposes:

* parents who want to track their child’s usage and text messages
* husbands & wives who want to determine if their spouse is cheating on them.
* businesses that need to enforce Acceptable Use in Vehicle Policies on company-provided phones or track their employees by GPS
* law enforcement officials use the software to catch child predators
* You can also back up your own cell activity as a record of all important text conversations and travels.

And now cell phone tapping software is being used by stalkers, hackers and identity thieves for around the clock surveillance.
Cell Phone Tapping Solutions

Until there is a better solution, your options are minimal:

1. Password protect your cell phone so that only you have access (this isn’t as safe as it sounds, but it’s a start).
2. Don’t allow anyone to have physical access to your cell phone if you think they have a reason to tap your communications (competitors, angry spouses, ex-partners, etc.).
3. Consider turning off the GPS function when you don’t need it. This makes it harder for someone to track your location.
4. Consider pulling the battery out of the phone if you are in a conversation where you do not want to be heard.
5. Keep your eye open for software that detects spyware on your phone.
6. If you have a cell phone issued by your company, they probably reserve the right to monitor your location and potentially to intercept your communications. Watch what you say.
7. If you are in the military and feel like your phone is tapped, alert your S2 or InfoSec contact.
8. Check back here frequently so that I can keep you posted on the latest developments.

You can be at risk due to cell phone tapping and other phone tap crimes.

Recently I met two soldiers who alerted me to the new security risk of Cell Phone Tapping. SigInt (or signal interception) has long been a part of warfare and espionage. But the possibilities erupt with the advent of cell phone tapping. Imagine the conversation of a soldier being overheard by the enemy—deployment details, troop locations, command structure, strategic and tactical information. The prospect is terrifying for our national security.

This week, I was asked to help with a case of domestic abuse: the husband had installed Cell Phone Tapping Software (like computer spyware or keyloggers) on his wife’s phone prior to their divorce. During the divorce proceedings, he listened to every conversation, read every email and text sent from her phone, and could even control her calendar and applications (thanks to iPhone Tapping Software). Because of GPS tracking, he always knew where she was. When she switched to a new phone number and iPhone, iTunes must have synced the malicious software to the new phone along with all of the legitimate programs—allowing the abusive husband access to the new phone and continue stalking her. Cell phone tapping software allows the user to perform all of these tasks without your ever knowing it:

* Silently record the entire text of all SMS text messages (allowing them to read all of your incoming and outgoing text messages)
* Log information about each call (so that they know who you called, when and for how long)
* Provide actual GPS positions (so that they know where you are anytime your phone is on)
* Receive a text message when someone uses the cell phone so that the spy can call in and listen to everything being said (every conversation you have can be overheard and recorded)
* Turn the cell phone into a remote listening device, even when the phone is not open or in use (allowing the spy to listen in on conversations anytime your cell phone is near)

I ran into this video from WTHR Indianapolis about tapping cell phones that corroborates all that I had learned—make sure you watch through to the end (you may need to double click to play the file).
Tapping a cell phone is quite easy with the right software (which can be purchased very inexpensively and legally). You see, the software was designed for “legitimate” purposes:

* Parents who want to track their child’s usage and text messages
* Husbands and wives who want to determine if their spouse is cheating on them.
* Businesses that need to enforce Acceptable Use in Vehicle Policies on company-provided phones or track their employees by GPS
* Law enforcement officials use the software to catch child predators

You can also back up your own cell activity as a record of all important text conversations and travels.

And now cell phone tapping software is being used by stalkers, hackers and identity thieves for around the clock surveillance.

Cell Phone Tapping Solutions
Until there is a better solution, your options are minimal:

1. Password protect your cell phone so that only you have access (this isn’t as safe as it sounds, but it’s a start).

2. Don’t allow anyone to have physical access to your cell phone if you think they have a reason to tap your communications (competitors, angry spouses, ex-partners, etc.).

3. Consider turning off the GPS function when you don’t need it. This makes it harder for someone to track your location.

4. Consider pulling the battery out of the phone if you are in a conversation where you do not want to be heard.

5. Keep your eye open for software that detects spyware on your phone.

6. If you have a cell phone issued by your company, they probably reserve the right to monitor your location and potentially to intercept your communications. Watch what you say.

7. If you are in the military and feel like your phone is tapped, alert your S2 or InfoSec contact.

By using a phone tap software, a regular cell phone becomes a cell phone tapping surveillance gadget.

Today the United States has at least 130 million cell phone users. all are subject to increasingly precise tracking with cell phone surveillance technology. The infrastructure that supports such tracking has evolved rapidly through a series of technical, legal, and political mutations, all stemming from the choices of highly interested actors. The resulting configuration of laws, networks, and corporate interests determines who is able to use the phone system to gather information about the mobility, not only of individuals, but of the population as a whole.

It is worth taking a hard look at how those choices were made, and who gained and who lost from them.

IT HAS ALWAYS been technically necessary to locate mobile phones. The phone company has to know where you are in order to route calls to you. Whenever your cell phone is on, it’s emitting little “I am here” signals. The nearest cell tower picks up these signals and informs the network where to send incoming calls. At this stage, though, the locational information is rather vague. It only locates you as being somewhere in the range of a particular tower-perhaps an area of several square miles.

At first, only the phone company had access to that locational information. But in 1994, Congress passed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), requiring phone companies to share the locational information, in real time, with police agencies, upon subpoena or court order. This is one way that surveillance infrastructures grow-once one organization has information for a particular purpose, other organizations try to get access to that information for their own purposes. This pattern by which systems developed for one purpose by one set of players subsequently become platforms for quite different interests-a process known as “function creep”-has wrought stunning changes over the past ten years.

CALEA requires phone companies to deliver location only as precisely as they have on hand, that is, to the nearest cell tower. But other federal action has instigated a massive overhaul of the mobile phone locational system to make the information it produces extremely precise and instantly available. In the 1990s, the FCC and Congress together mandated that the mobile phone system become fully integrated with the 9-1-1 system. These mandates have been the driving force in a huge reconfiguration and extension of cell phone surveillance capacity. To understand the shape of that reconfiguration, it’s necessary to know a bit about how the 9-1-1 system works.

Originally, 9-1-1 was a dedicated number and a specialized routing system delivering emergency calls directly to an emergency operator. When you dialed 9-1-1, the phone system recognized it as an emergency call and automatically routed your call to that operator, who then routed the call to a police or fire department. This system was later upgraded to include the equivalent of caller-ID, so the operator would automatically receive the caller’s number along with the voice call. The operator could then look up that number in a database to find the service address of that phone and so direct the emergency services to the correct location. This system of Automatic Number Identification/Automatic Location Identification (ANI/ALI) became standard throughout North America in the early 1990s. It was developed when wired local service, operated by former Bell monopolies, was overwhelmingly the norm, and it was operated by those local companies as part of their public service responsibility.

No sooner had the ANI/ALI system become firmly entrenched than several factors made it unworkable. First, there was the advent of competition in local telephone service. Now, not only the local Bell monopoly, but all of the newly competing local phone companies had to update the ANI/ALI database with information from their service records. Because that database was operated by their main competitor-the local Bell company-new phone companies were understandably hesitant to provide it with the addresses of all their clients. In many cases, local regulators resolved this conflict by contracting out the management of the ANI/ALI database to independent third parties. Thus a new set of players and new infrastructures joined the picture-profitmaking organizations, separate from the phone companies but intimately connected with them, whose primary business was to collect and distribute locational information.

The increased popularity of mobile telephones also complicated the 9-1-1 system. Operators who received emergency calls from cell phones had no idea where to send the responders. As a result, the FCC and Congress mandated that mobile phone operators find a way to determine the latitude and longitude of emergency calls to within about 125 meters, and to deliver that information, along with the voice call itself, to the appropriate emergency operator.

Complying with this mandate has not been simple. First, no one really knew how to locate a cell phone call that precisely. Eventually, mobile phone companies contracted with third-party location services to pinpoint those calls. So another part of the infrastructure developed-businesses whose primary purpose is to locate phone calls. Again, these businesses are separate from, but intimately connected with, the phone companies.

WIRELESS 9-1-1 cell phone surveillance use has also triggered far-reaching changes in ANI/ALI. That database had been relatively static-it needed to be updated only when a new phone was installed or an existing phone removed. With mobile phones, the database needed to become dynamic-updated at the time of the emergency call in order to reflect the caller’s current position. The quality of the data had to change, too. Addresses were no longer considered adequate; instead, the database had to include the caller’s latitude and longitude. It also had to be linked to routing software that determined which local emergency operator should field a call from a particular latitude and longitude.

Taken together, changes invisible to ordinary citizens have moved us into a world where all mobile phone users are potentially subject to precise cell phone surveillance monitoring. Specialized location cell phone surveillancesystems pinpoint calls. Specialized database systems collect and distribute that data. Specialized routing systems determine where to send calls from particular locations. Specialized decision software determines how to respond to calls. all of these cell phone surveillance systems are designed to be adaptable as emergency calls start coming from handheld computers rather than cell phones, or as calls arrive through the Internet rather than through the telephone network. They are designed to be able to link to various databases and distribute that information (medical histories, for example) along with the emergency call.

For the most part, these cell phone surveillance systems are operated by private companies. Yet they have been developed with public money. The FCC, in mandating these upgrades, also permitted phone companies to assess surcharges to pay for them. Everyone with phone service pays for the 9-1-1 service. In effect, then, what has developed in the United States in the past decade is a publicly funded, privately operated, generic, adaptable, and pervasive cell phone surveillance infrastructure.

By this point, all sorts of new players have emerged. Private ownership and the profit motive create pressures to extend these capabilities to other than emergency service. For example, wireless carriers are exploring the possibilities of linking data generated by the cell phone surveillance systems described above on phone users’ location and movements to commercially developed marketing data on users’ social characteristics and purchasing patterns. Think of the possibilities: when certain trigger conditions are met-when the right sort of person appears in the right sort of region at the right sort of time-the carrier could deliver an advertiser’s message to the user. Nearing a Pizza Hut, one could find one’s cell phone ringing with a recorded ad suggesting that a snack is waiting at the next fork in the road.

If this sounds like the stuff of science fiction, consider this statement from the developer of a location-based marketing service:

Think of [our service] as a local market, a one-mile circle of energy around a potential customer, which moves with him or her, providing local information that fits individual needs. This information is dynamic and controlled by the merchants, communities and establishments in that radius. (“Going Local,” Adiveek, 2003)

Thus what began as a series of technological and managerial changes in the name of efficiency has mutated into the possibility of using cell phone surveillance in the commercializing of an entire medium.

COMMERCIAL INTERESTS are not alone in their desire to exploit the new cell phone surveillance possibilities. Police and national security agencies increasingly seek to use the vast amounts of locational data generated by emergency calls, not simply to respond to particular callers, but to trace patterns of normal and aberrant behavior. For example, some regional call centers share the cell phone surveillance locational data from medical emergency calls with third parties. Those third parties then analyze that locational data to look for patterns suggesting an epidemic or bioterrorism. This is another type of function creep-a system initially intended to respond to individual emergencies has become used in wholesale surveillance.

This drift is hardly accidental or unguided. Various laws affect the way that the cell phone surveillance infrastructure is used. According to those laws, there is no opt-out from location during 9-1-1 calls. Every emergency call must be automatically located, but the location information generated in such calls can only be used to provide emergency services. Further, locational data generated through cell phone surveillance during non-emergency phone calls can be used for purposes other than call delivery only with the caller’s express prior consent. Yet even those relatively stringent protections permit the uses of the infrastructure to migrate.

First, although phone companies can only use cell phone surveillance locational information with the user’s consent, the FCC has declined to rule, and no court has decided, exactly what constitutes “express prior consent,” or, for that matter, what constitutes “locational information.” Some carriers have asserted that the location of the cell tower handling the call is not “locational information.” These practices are likely to be adjudicated in the courts, which have previously held for very lax definitions of “consent.”

Second, althoughcell phone surveillance emergency call data can only be used in order to respond to emergencies, it is unclear what constitutes an emergency or who decides that an emergency exists. As mentioned above, emergency calls are being monitored and analyzed for signs of bioterrorism. The operators of emergency response organizations thus have accepted that pattern analysis fits the definition of “emergency services.” Such developments become truly frightening when we consider, first, that local emergency response is becoming more and more centralized under the auspices of the Department of Homeland security and second, that the federal administration considers the nation to be constantly in a state of emergency, devoting huge administrative and monetary resources to pre-emptive identification of suspicious persons or conditions.

For example, initiatives such as Total Information Awareness (TIA) (now strategically renamed “Terrorism Information Awareness”) and the Computer Aided Passenger Profiling System (CAPPS) are intended to churn huge amounts of personal data in order to find patterns of normalcy and deviance. After those patterns are established, they are used to profile individuals and assign them a certain risk level. JetBlue Airlines recently transferred to a Department of Defense contractor over a million passenger travel records, which the contractor then merged with other public and private databases records and subjected to statistical analysis. Particular individuals, though unnamed, were isolated as exemplifying specific levels of threat. All of this was, apparently, perfectly legal, except that it was in violation of JetBlue’s published privacy policy. So the formal complaints against JetBlue to the Federal Trade Commission charge deceptive advertising, rather than privacy violations.

TIA and CAPPS do not use the 9-1-1 infrastructure; they do not yet even use locational data as such. However, the administration has indicated its willingness to press privacy laws to their limits in this effort, and those limits are expansive. Locational information is subject to stricter privacy regulations than airline travel data, but those regulations can be changed and reinterpreted. Imagine what a resourceful and determined authoritarian regime could do with such data!

Pattern-analysis applications such as TIA, CAPPS, and bioterrorism alerts aren’t actually interested in any particular individual. They are intended only to establish norms and patterns across the population against which particular individuals or situations can later be compared. But, of course, locational records also provide a huge resource in constructing dossiers and histories of individuals. During normal operations, the cell phone surveillance system generates and records locational information for billing and maintenance purposes. Currently, these records are generally accurate only to the location of the cell tower handling each call. But as more services are offered, more numerous and more precise cell phone surveillance locational databases will proliferate. The information in them will be available to police agencies. Complex legal standards apply to the level of review and judicial oversight necessary before police can obtain the warrants, subpoenas, or court orders required to compel disclosure of these cell phone surveillance records. Arcane though those regulations are, there is an unmistakable trend toward lowering barriers to police access.

No DEVELOPMENT more dramatically illustrates this trend than the USA Patriot Act of 2001. This act relaxed standards promulgated under the earlier Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

Specifically, it permitted Internet service providers (ISPs) “voluntarily” to disclose customer records to government agents if the ISP believes a crime is being committed. It also required police only to assert that the records are “relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation” before obtaining a court order requiring disclosure by the ISP.

Moreover, if the police believe that they may, eventually, want to subpoena an ISP’s records, they can order the ISP to maintain records of customer transactions for up to three months, while they convince a court to issue the subpoena.

These provisions apply only to ISPs, not to telecommunications carriers. Nevertheless, they are ominous for two reasons.

First, locational information initially generated by a wireless telecommunication provider may be disclosed to a series of third-party information service providers. This would certainly be the case if the user subscribed to location-based services offering, for example, maps, directions, and local guides. Once data have been “voluntarily” released to the ISP, they are subject to less stringent control.

Second, laws and regulations governing police surveillance are justified by reference to standard industry practice. Federal law, FCC rulings, and legal decisions all make it relatively easy for police to request information that is “reasonably available” or “accessible” to the telecommunications provider. Once a type of information has been deemed to be “reasonably accessible” under certain technological and industrial configurations, police agencies have successfully promulgated mandates to require that information to remain available, even as those configurations change.

For example, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was a strong supporter of CALEA, which required carriers to make the location of wireless calls via cell phone surveillance available to law enforcement in real time under subpoena or court order. At the time of its enactment, CALEA required specific technical changes to the telecommunications system.

These changes were justified in part by the claim that since the address of wired telephones had always been available under similar orders, then, in order to maintain the status quo, the location of wireless phones should also be available. But in fact the legal availability of the address of wired lines was initially justified by the technical “accessibility” to the phone company of its own service records.

So we have a circular argument justifying a spiral of cell phone surveillance: the address of wired lines was “reasonably accessible” to phone companies, so phone companies were required to make that data available to the police. Because the location of wired phones was legally accessible to police, then the cell phone surveillance data should be available as well, even if that meant changing the phone system in order to make that information “readily available.”

STEADILY BUT QUIETLY, publicly funded initiatives to modernize the 9-1-1 system have spurred development of an infrastructure of cell phone surveillance.

That infrastructure includes

* the capacity for wireless carriers to locate callers quickly and closely

* privately operated databases linking phone numbers to their current location

* intelligent networks that transfer calls and data based on the locations of particular callers

* sophisticated software that suggests responses based on the attributes of a particular individual in a particular location during a particular situation at a particular time

In part because that cell phone surveillance infrastructure was developed under a policy of telecommunications deregulation and competition, it is privately owned, segmented, modular, standardized, and generic.

Because it is privately owned and generic, its operators have great motivation to expand its usage beyond emergency service provision into markets for other location-based services. Because it is a wellspring of data, police and national security agencies are eager to tap it for surveillance of populations in general and individuals in particular. Some laws restrict the ways in which state and corporate interests are able to pursue their interests, but the infrastructure itself is a profound resource.

Because that resource was created and is supported with public funds, it is the object of legitimate public interest and intervention. That interest has so far been addressed by attention to privacy protection regarding the cell phone surveillance data generated and stored within the infrastructure. I suggest that that frame is inadequate for understanding or responding to the issues raised by this new configuration ol information and knowledge.

Privacy is inadequate, first, because it presumes harm to specific individuals. Surveillance instead addresses the construction of demographic groups or risk categories. Surveillance involves the shaping of social relations, the creation of social knowledge.

When marketers crow that they are now able to serve appropriate ads to appropriate persons as they travel through particular regions, we should ask not only whose privacy is being threatened, but who decides which ads are appropriate for which persons?

To what end are those prescriptions made? Who is constructing the social landscape in which and through which we live?

Instead of focusing solely on cell phone surveillance and privacy, activists must look at a broader canvas and work with a broader palette of possible interventions.

The locational infrastructure being developed in the United States is, or should be, a public infrastructure. It is being created by public mandate and supported by public funding. Policy responses toward that infrastructure should be explored in at least two directions. First, can the entire infrastructure, not merely the data within it, be restricted to public safety purposes, and can the parameters of that use be democratically determined?

The 9-1-1 cell phone surveillance system is clearly of profound social benefit. Personally, I am relieved to believe that, should my car overturn on a country road, medical personnel will be dispatched appropriately. I’m less sanguine, though, about the possibility that my commuter route will be “appropriately” developed according to the needs of global corporations, or that roadblocks will be “appropriately” placed along it to intercept potential terrorists.

Second, can the infrastructure be made truly public? Can the databases and data-mining cell phone surveillance software be made available equitably, not only to those with subpoena or market power, but to those who nevertheless have a political and moral stake in the constructive activities that those databases facilitate? Can we establish some kind of frame that acknowledges them as public resources and the spaces they mediate as public spaces?

The shape of these emerging infrastructures is not pre-ordained. It is the product of human activity. We have today the infrastructure we made in the past, and we will have tomorrow the infrastructure we are making today. We must make these “makings” visible and accessible, and we must engage in them with foresight and sophistication.

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