Japan could keep tabs on defense officials via GPS phones
By Darren Murph 
posted November 1st 2007 8:44AM
posted November 1st 2007 8:44AM
It's not like the Japanese government hasn't dabbled in GPS (and RFID, too) tracking before, but the nation's latest idea involving Big Brother is (unsurprisingly) catching a fair amount of criticism. Reportedly, Japan wants to equip senior defense officials with GPS-enabled mobiles, and it's making no bones about the reasoning behind it. Quite frankly, it's looking for ways to keep a more watchful eye on officials' whereabouts after a higher-up was recently "treated to hundreds of expensive rounds of golf by a defense contractor." Reportedly, the handsets would only be given out to senior staff "required to report for duty in the case of a security emergency," but a number of anonymous individuals have already expressed disdain for the plan through local news outlets. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear, right?
Bring out the N95 8GBs
Maybe they'd go on strike like NY cabbies.
Enh. Tracking high-level public servants is not the same as tracking ordinary citizens.
However, I doubt this will have much effect on corruption; it'll just shift resources to straight-up bribery.
I'll give you the point that there is a difference between tracking "public servants" if of course, they're upfront about it. However, I still disagree with any government taking on this nanny role... these people are citizens too, and deserver privacy in their time off the job. Anyway, the real problem here is the military-industrial complex, not a lack of spying.
Softbank (they're better known for Yahoo than by their wireless carrier name, I guess) already does this for normal people, sort of. They have a "search for my phone" service- report your phone lost, and if it has a built-in GPS they will remotely activate it and report its location to you (and presumably law enforcement so that they can go after it). I think it's a great idea (both what I just said and the post).
Just leave the GPS enabled phone at the office/house and turn on call forwarding to your "other" cell.
Simple reason this is bad:
Your enemy gets the signal codes and poof all of yor defense guys are dead before you realize you are under attack.