Authorities and cell phone service providers have the ability to remotely activate a handsets microphone. With the added ability to triangulate a phones location using three telephone masts or base stations and the penetration rate the technology enjoys the potential for mass eavesdropping is ominous.

Two well publicized arrests were made possible by this technology. Bombing suspect Hamdi Adus Issac was arrested in Rome after authorities tracked him using his cellphone across different networks in real time. A Financial Times article describes the arrest and the technology that made it possible:

"By using no more than three mobile telephone masts or base stations - a process known as triangulation - it is possible to pin down the location of an individual in high density urban areas to between two and three metres. Crucial to this triangulation is the proximity to each other of the three base stations, but on average the standard deviation is no more than 25 metres.

If ordered to do so, mobile telephone operators can also tap any calls, but more significantly they can also 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, giving security services the perfect bugging device. "We have inadvertently started carrying our own trackable ID card in the form of the mobile phone," said Sandra Bell, head of the homeland security department at the Royal United Services Institute."

Two accused New York mobsters had their conversations monitored by the F.B.I. who used a "roving bug" technique on their Nextel cell phones. CNET reports:

"The surveillance technique came to light in an opinion published this week by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. He ruled that the "roving bug" was legal because federal wiretapping law is broad enough to permit eavesdropping even of conversations that take place near a suspect's cell phone.

Kaplan's opinion said that the eavesdropping technique "functioned whether the phone was powered on or off." Some handsets can't be fully powered down without removing the battery; for instance, some Nokia models will wake up when turned off if an alarm is set."

The article delves into other case law including keyloggers planted by the F.B.I. on a suspect's computer to obtain his PGP encryption key:

"the FBI found itself thwarted when Scarfo used Pretty Good Privacy software (PGP) to encode confidential business data.

So with a judge's approval, FBI agents repeatedly snuck into Scarfo's business to plant a keystroke logger and monitor its output.

Like Ardito's lawyers, Scarfo's defense attorneys argued that the then-novel technique was not legal and that the information gleaned through it could not be used. Also like Ardito, Scarfo's lawyers lost when a judge ruled in January 2002 that the evidence was admissible."

These stories almost leave me longing for the days of Carnivore and Echelon.