UPDATE -- WE ARE WATCHING YOU!

D.G., Wendy, and other of my friends read my post of yesterday 

and wrote they would promptly turn off their cell phones when not in use to prevent government snooping.

Ah, those pesky buggers have thought of that.

Can someone truly bring your phone back to life without touching it? 

No.

 But government spies can get your phone to play dead. 

 The NSA or the FBI can set up their own miniature cell network tower.

Your phone automatically connects to it. 

Now, that tower's radio waves send a command to your phone's antennae: the baseband chip.

That tells your phone to fake any shutdown and stay on.

A smart hack won't keep your phone running at 100%, though.

Spies could keep your phone on standby and just use the microphone -- or send pings announcing your location.

The only way you can tell is if your phone feels warm when it's turned off.

That means the baseband processor is still running.

Scary, right?

There literally is no place to hide. 

Murderers can remain at large for years, but let you get on the wrong side of the Intelligence Agencies -- BAM!

Of course, your phone does not have to be turned on to tattle on you.

 The software inside your phone pinpoints you whether it is on or not.

How?

Something in your phone known as an accelerometer.

It's a tiny chip inside your phone that measures whether you're holding your phone horizontally or vertically, 

so the phone can alter its screen accordingly.

But in the same way your fingerprints are yours alone, so is your phone's signal.

Those imperfections mean your phone's unique signal can make your habits easy to track whenever your phone is in use.

Your phone's camera, gyroscope and microphones, among other parts, make you vulnerable as well.

That's any cell phone, too. Sigh.

 And it is NOT JUST THE GOVERNMENT:

FLIES CAUGHT IN CYBER AMBER

Remember that scene in MINORITY REPORT,

where Tom Cruise is on the run from the law,

but is unable to avoid detection because everywhere he goes

there are constant retina scans feeding his location back to a central database?

That’s Tomorrow.

Today, Google is tracking wherever your smartphone goes, and putting an ominous Red dot on a map to mark the occasion.

You can find that map here.

All you need to do is log in with the same account you use on your phone,

and the record of everywhere you’ve been for the last day to month will erupt across your screen like measles.

We deny the cyber intrusion into our lives. 

We watch the latest on the Kardashians or Miley or Taylor, pop a diet soda,

and force the murmur of Big Brother into the back of our minds.

But just one look at a map of your movements for the past few days in Red, pimp-slaps some reality back into you.

Yet, we can trust the government, right?  Until you look towards Ferguson.