The topic of government surveillance is a sensitive one for many people because people throughout the world do not trust their government. As a result, it is not a complete surprise for people to hear about how their government is monitoring their activities or how their government can monitor their activities. Nevertheless, many people still get enraged whenever they hear examples of how their government is monitoring their activities.
Earlier this week a lot of people were angered by a headline about how it is legal in some U.S. states for government officials to install GPS devices underneath people’s car and track their car’s whereabouts without informing the people they monitor. While this recent revelation is startling, it is not the most erogenous example of secret government surveillance that I can think of.
A few years ago U.S. media reported about how the U.S. government has the ability to legally utilize American’s cell phone as a listening device whether it is on or off. Apparently some peoples’ cell phone has software installed that converts their phone into a microphone and transmitter. This microphone and transmitter enables the U.S. government to monitor any audio conversation that may occur nearby a programmed cell phone. Therefore, the U.S. government has the ability to monitor an American’s conversation if a cell phone is nearby (whether they actually monitor an ordinary citizen’s conversation is a different story). Here is a television report about the topic: Link
Here is a more in-depth article about the topic.
The lesson that should be taken from this is to always be careful with what you say because someone may be monitoring you.
- The lesson also applies to those of you living outside the U.S. because the U.S. is renowned for its relatively free society. If the relatively benign U.S. government utilizes a variety of methods to monitor their citizens’ activities I can only imagine the lengths that Australian, Asian, South American, and European governments go to monitor their citizens’ activities.
