The 9th U.S. Circus Court of Appeals has ruled that the federal government can use your cell phone as a "roving bug" - can use your cellphone as a microphone and record conversations – even when the phone is not being used. Given the ubiquity of the devices, which the federal government gives away "free" to low-income folks (they even run expensive television ads hawking the "free" phones), one can expect phones to become a favored weapon in the surveillance state. It's for your own good, Citizen.
There are, of course, far reaching implications of such a decision. As we reported recently, a person will not know, and perhaps will never know, if he has been the target of surveillance on the part of the federal government.
