[backwoods-engineer]

OMG.

People do not understand how the technology works. Might as well be magic. No, it doesn't spy on you. Your cell phone tells the Feds where you are. It's built into the cell network. But mostly, nobody cares.

Electronics and RF engineer here, design RF devices (including smart meters) for a living. Ask questions.

[kitchen]

Would a defunct microwave oven chassis and case, with boards, coils, transformers, etc. removed, and then properly grounded, function as an effective Faraday Cage?

[Garth Tater]

"But mostly, nobody cares... Ask questions."

The Feds seem to care a lot about a lot of people. Why do you think they don't care about you?

[aquila48]

“People do not understand how the technology works. Might as well be magic.”

For 99.9% of the people, it is magic.

I guess you can always turn off GPS and turn it on just when you need it. But if everybody did that then the traffic option in your map app wouldn’t be that useful.

[Boogieman]

“No, it doesn’t spy on you.”

We already know, courtesy of Mr. Snowden, that they can remotely turn on your cell phone’s microphone to spy on you without you knowing it.

It’s not feasible for them to do that in a blanket fashion to all cell phones, but they can do that for targeted surveillance.