Surveillance

It's up to each of us to stop Congress from acting out of fear. Your elected representatives are being called on by the White House to vote this week to expand the administration's powers to spy on your telephone and e-mail communications without warrants. Using the threat of a terrorist attack, the administration is urging reform of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which is meant to protect Americans from warrantless government spying.

BEIJING, July 13 (Xinhuanet) -- Cell phone signals are being used by law enforcement officials to find missing people in romote areas, to track terrorists and fugitives, and to place suspects near crime scenes, experts say.

"The average citizen is not aware that they are carrying a location-tracking device in their pocket," said Kevin Bankston, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based group that works to preserve privacy rights.

When turned on, cell phones constantly emit locator signals called pings so their companies know to which towers to route phone calls, Bankston said.

"If completed this program would include license plate readers and 3,000 security cameras below Canal Street."

By the end of this year, police officials say, more than 100 cameras will have begun monitoring cars moving through Lower Manhattan, the beginning phase of a London-style surveillance system that would be the first in the United States.

The Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, as the plan is called, will resemble London’s so-called Ring of Steel, an extensive web of cameras and roadblocks designed to detect, track and deter terrorists. British officials said images captured by the cameras helped track suspects after the London subway bombings in 2005 and the car bomb plots last month.