I told you that they'd use our cell phones against us!

I hate to say it, but I was right.

NEW YORK -- A federal court issued an opinion permitting government agencies to use cell phone data to track a cell phone's physical location, without a search warrant based on probable cause.

For those of you with an option in your settings to turn the "GPS Location" on or off...it doesn't work. It's there to give you a false sense of privacy.

This is all actually old news considering the FCC instituted the E911 (Phase I & II) - Wireless Services plan which mandates that service providers provide the location of any cell phone to within at least 50 meters. This, I believe was back in 1999 or so. (With current GPS capabilities the reality is these phones can be located down to within a few feet.)

Example: On October 12, 2001 the FCC approved an Enhanced 911 (E911) Phase II compliance plan for Sprint Spectrum, L.P., d/b/a Sprint PCS (Sprint), which, among other conditions, requires Sprint to ensure that 100% of new digital handsets activated are location capable by December 31, 2002 and thereafter. They got a 6-month extension with March 2003 as the expected date by which all phones Sprint sells to its distributors to be 100% location ready. All phones are now 100% capable. Here is the PDF indicating the above. If you go back a directory to this page you can search for your cell phone service provider.