Introduction

For whatever reason, Big Brother, with greatly enhanced powers to violate your privacy and civil rights thanks to the USA PATRIOT ACT, has decided that YOU need to be brought in. For whatever reason. Any reason will do: anybody can be a terrorist now.

One way you could be located is through a device just about everyone is in possession of: a cell phone. You can be tracked by your cell phone in one of two ways: by triangulating the radio signal your phone gives off when it is on or through the use of Global Positioning Satellite technology. Most of the latest cell phones on the market today come with the GPS chip pre-installed. We're sold this innovation on the basis of safety. All great restrictions of freedom begin with pleas for our safety. It's for our own good, you see. Or It's to protect the CHILDREN.

When you slice through the propaganda used to justify these accessories, it all boils down to one thing. They want to have the ability to know where you are at...at all times.

Tracking you via your cell phone makes that goal very easy to achieve.

An anonymous cell phone? How?

When you go to get a cell phone, the process is very much akin to getting a mortgage on a home or buying a fancy new car. They want to know everything about you. Where you live. Where you bank. What your State Slave Number (SSN) is. They check your credit. They want personal references. Business references. They want to know where you have been working since graduating from kindergarten. They want to tie your account to a credit or debit card number. Everything they can get to link that cell phone to your entire life history.

If you pass the economic background checks, they grant you the privilege of paying for incoming and outgoing airtime, roaming charges, hidden fees and taxes that were not spelled out clearly when you thought you'd be paying $49.99 a month then get a bill that's more like $55 or $60.

And, God forbid, should you EVER go over your monthly allocation of minutes. That $50 bill can easily escalate into the hundreds of dollars.

It's a great racket if you're AT&T, NexTel or Cingular.

And everywhere you go, there you are, easily located 5 by 5, a blip on a satellite feed that can pinpoint your location within ten feet.

They know exactly who you are by your cell phone signal. That number is practically tied to every commercial record about you.

Now let's outline a methodology that greatly reduces Big Brother's ability to locate you in real time at any time, anywhere you might be at right now.

First, you need an anonymous cell number. A number that is in NO WAY tied to any SSN, credit/debit/banking information at all. They might have scooped up your cell signal at NSA headquarters, but that signal has no personal history tied to it. To find out your identity, they're going to have to snatch you up while your phone is on and then jack your wallet to get a look at your identification.

So go to Wal-Mart or K-Mart or any other kind of mart like 7-11 that sells pre-paid cellular packages. These packages require no credit checks or ID checks of any kind. They're all over the place when you look for them.

You are paying more for your airtime going this route than you would with that great plan that Cingular wants to hook you up with but the trade off here is your very anonymity.

My Verizon phone has Internet access on the phone as well. You can be just as connected as anyone else, without giving up one microbit of privacy. It'll just cost you a little more for the privilege.

When you find the phone you like with the features you like, take it up to the cashier and pay for it...WITH CASH. Don't be an idiot and use a credit/debit/banking instrument to pay for the transaction. You'll immediately blow your cover that way.

That phone purchase will now be tied to some sort of banking record. And if they want to find out whose phone signal that is radiating out there, they'll be able to track it by your debit card purchase at Wal-Mart on 06-06-06. Wrong answer.

Pay with cash. Buy the airtime refill cards with CASH. ALWAYS.

The trail will dead end right there. At a cash transaction. Nothing more will be known about you and your cell phone than that.

Practical COMSEC

Communications Security (COMSEC) is the next order of business. So you've got an anonymous cell phone number now. That's great. You can feel like a real secret agent, sure. But if you go everywhere with that cell phone ON, you will still be located if they want to locate you.

I recommend that you go about your daily affairs with that cell phone turned off. Use it like an answering service. Come up at RANDOM times during the day and night, check your voice mail, see who has left a message, and if at all possible, call your callers back on a public land line.

I know it's a pain in the arse, but being secure and maintaining a semblance of privacy in this Total Surveillance Society they're erecting around us isn't easy. Most people don't like to be burdened with the extra hassle of protecting their privacy. So they're more than happy to sacrifice their privacy for convenience.

Big Brother and Big Business make it so darn convenient for you to sign over your privacy for $49.99 a month.

Don't do it.