The author is confused about the technology. The government didn't intercept GPS signals from the phone because that's not possible. Only the GPS satellites transmit signals, and the devices merely receive them.<p>But the phone was transmitting its GPS coordinates to the phone company, who then passed this on to the government. From page 4 of the opinion: “Believing that Big Foot was carrying the 6447 phone, authorities obtained an order from a federal magistrate judge on July 12, 2006, authorizing the phone company to release subscriber information, cell site information, GPS real-time location, and ‘ping’ data for the 6447 phone in order to learn Big Foot's location while he was en route to deliver the drugs.”
Just wait. What comes next is the sale of this data to the highest bidder.<p>What, you don't think that companies won't be willing to pay for a list of people who regularly walk by their store and who regularly visit a competitor's store? And you don't think that there aren't private companies who would be happy to crunch data to find things like that out of the data stream?<p>Make it a real time feed and it is even better. If you walk into one mattress store, the competitor 2 blocks away sends you a message saying that they have a deal on a mattress for you, why not visit? If you're selling big ticket items, finding people as they are about ready to make those purchases is pure gold!