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<font size=3>12/06/06<br>
<b>Court Says FBI Can Use Your Cell Phone To Spy... On You<br>
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<a href="http://www.ktre.com/Global/story.asp?S=5777429&nav=menu118_3" eudora="autourl">
http://www.ktre.com/Global/story.asp?S=5777429&nav=menu118_3</a><br>
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Can You Hear Me Now?<br><br>
by Vic Walter and Krista Kjellman, ABC News<br><br>
Cell phone users, beware. The FBI can listen to everything you say,
even when the cell phone is turned off.<br><br>
A recent court ruling in a case against the Genovese crime family
revealed that the FBI has the ability from a remote location to activate
a cell phone and turn its microphone into a listening device that
transmits to an FBI listening post, a method known as a "roving
bug." Experts say the only way to defeat it is to remove the
cell phone battery. <br><br>
"The FBI can access cell phones and modify them remotely without
ever having to physically handle them," James Atkinson, a
counterintelligence security consultant, told ABC News. "Any
recently manufactured cell phone has a built-in tracking device, which
can allow eavesdroppers to pinpoint someone's location to within just a
few feet," he added.<br><br>
According to the recent court ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Lewis
Kaplan, "The device functioned whether the phone was powered on or
off, intercepting conversations within its range wherever it happened to
be." <br><br>
The court ruling denied motions by 10 defendants to suppress the
conversations obtained by "roving bugs" on the phones of John
Ardito, a high-ranking member of the family, and Peter Peluso, an
attorney and close associate of Ardito, who later cooperated with the
government. The "roving bugs" were approved by a judge
after the more conventional bugs planted at specified locations were
discovered by members of the crime family, who then started to conduct
their business dealings in several additional locations, including more
restaurants, cars, a doctor's office and public streets.<br><br>
"The courts have given law enforcement a blank check for
surveillance," Richard Rehbock, attorney for defendant John Ardito,
told ABC News.<br><br>
Judge Kaplan's ruling said otherwise. "While a mobile device makes
interception easier and less costly to accomplish than a stationary one,
this does not mean that it implicated new or different privacy
concerns." He continued, "It simply dispenses with the need for
repeated installations and surreptitious entries into buildings. It
does not invade zones of privacy that the government could not reach by
more conventional means."<br><br>
But Rehbock disagrees. "Big Brother is upon us...1984 happened
a long time ago," he said, referring to the George Orwell futuristic
novel "1984," which described a society whose members were
closely watched by those in power and was published in 1949. <br><br>
The FBI maintains the methods used in its investigation of the Genovese
family are within the law. "The FBI does not discuss sensitive
surveillance techniques other than to emphasize that any electronic
surveillance is done pursuant to a court order and ongoing judicial
scrutiny," Agent Jim Margolin told ABC News.<br><br>
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San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
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