From: ABC News

Can You Hear Me Now?

By Vic Walter And Krista Kjellman
Dec 5, 2006 3:38pm

Cell phone users, beware.  The FBI can listen to everything you say, even when the cell phone is turned off. 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. “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. THE BLOTTER RECOMMENDS Federal Source to ABC News: We Know Who You’re Calling FBI Secret Probes: 3,501 Targets in the U.S. Click Here to Check Out the Latest Brian Ross Investigates Webcast on CIA Secret Prisons 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.”

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More information:

The SINGLE Most Important Step to Protect Yourself from Government Spying

(Fox News video) Government admits listening to cell phones even when turned off — “Experts say the only way around it is to take the battery out”

(video) New Cell Phone Spying Revelations: Phones Near Targeted Individual Remotely Activated As Bugs