[phyzome]

It's even worse: Since cell phones broadcast your location at all times, this means telling hundreds of companies (and a number of governments) your location at basically all times.

That's already an issue with most cell phones. Making this apply to prepaid phones is even worse.

[agloe_dreams]

One thing I wonder is if this is just one step removed from 'Now we know the identity of every user so we can now have both probable cause and verified identity to arrest over statements containing speech we do not like.' "

Like that is Carr's FCC in a nutshell - he wants to control speech by controlling the airwaves. That is a raw fact in his behavior. But when the news stations say the thing they want them to say, what happens next other than slightly extending the definitions of public good to the internet and then restricting speech?

[gwerbin]

If you have to wonder, you don't need to wonder. So now not only can "antifa"-related speech qualify you as a terrorist (https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/coun...), now your phone is legally required to track you and report your location at all times. The legal infrastructure is in place to track and bring a wide range of consequences down on just about any and all political enemy, whether that be ruining their life by dragging them through years of criminal charges or simply black-bagging them and whisking them off to a prison for "enemy combatants" without any oversight from a court. All of this is being done in full view of Congress and the Supreme Court, therefore one can only conclude that they are comfortable with and complicit in what is going on.

[psadauskas]

Not just "antifa" in scare quotes, the executive order literally says "anti fascist". My government says I'm a terrorist now because I'm opposed to fascism.

[gunsle]

Are you trying to imply that there isn’t coordinated attacks by fringe groups just because they’re leftist?

[gwerbin]

What does that have to do with anything I just said

[themafia]

That's rather public. Most likely is monitoring a journalist so you can more easily discover their sources or engaging in "parallel construction" to deal with "undesirables" of any stripe.

[lenerdenator]

It's important to remember that Carr is but a bureaucrat doing what he needs to do to make his boss (or, rather, his boss's boss) happy.

We have a real problem with people in government buying into the idea that it's basically a private company set up for the benefit of one man in particular.

[cucumber3732842]

They won't do that because that'll cause an uproar.

What they'll do, what they always do, what you can see them actively doing (albeit on other policy axis) even at the local government level, is simply scrutinize these people for other laws they've broken or rules they've run afoul of and then enforce the shit out of those.

[gausswho]

It does make me wonder if we're just racing to the day we've got our kyc-blessed phone in a drawer at home at the official address that's already known to carrier. And strap on it the software needed to either forward messages and calls via voip to our real phone, or open a server on it to let us access it from wherever we are to poll for our messages.

[tencentshill]

Apple has implemented a mitigation for this in their new modems, but unfortunately its a carrier opt-in, so only actually useful in Europe.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/apple-expands-this-location-focus...

[ofalkaed]

Cellphones broadcast their location, not ours. We can leave our phones at home.

[EvanAnderson]

Assuming your movements are tracked by other methods (surveillance cameras and facial recognition, purchase records, etc) the absence of your phone when you would otherwise normally have it is a data point, too.

[reactordev]

"Downstream collection" would have a field day with this data.