The FBI can secretly turn on your cellphone mic to eavesdrop on you

[AZ Progressive]

You think the NSA recording all your emails and messages is bad? How about recording all your in-person conversations without you even knowing it? Say you are in a "subversive" organization like an antiwar group or women's rights group (as the FBI defined such groups during the days of Cointelpro) and the FBI or NSA records what you are saying to other people in person. Your phone could be used against you. This has been used by the FBI but one must conclude that the NSA could be using it as well. An article from 2006:

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029_3-6140191.html

"The technique is called a "roving bug," and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.

Nextel cell phones owned by two alleged mobsters, John Ardito and his attorney Peter Peluso, were used by the FBI to listen in on nearby conversations. The FBI views Ardito as one of the most powerful men in the Genovese family, a major part of the national Mafia."

.......

Kaplan's opinion said that the eavesdropping technique "functioned whether the phone was powered on or off." Some handsets can't be fully powered down without removing the battery; for instance, some Nokia models will wake up when turned off if an alarm is set.
While the Genovese crime family prosecution appears to be the first time a remote-eavesdropping mechanism has been used in a criminal case, the technique has been discussed in security circles for years.

The U.S. Commerce Department's security office warns that "a cellular telephone can be turned into a microphone and transmitter for the purpose of listening to conversations in the vicinity of the phone." An article in the Financial Times last year said mobile providers can "remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner's knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call."