Hope you don't get cancer, CEO guy. (flickr.com/perspective)

Italy's Supreme Court has issued a ruling that could have a ripple effect for cellphone manufacturers all over the world by declaring a "causal link" between an Italian businessman's non-cancerous tumor and his daily cellphone usage.

The businessman, Innocente Marcolini, said he used his cellphone as much as six hours a day for work. Now his face his paralyzed on one side.

Testimony from oncologists and researchers on Mr. Marcolini's behalf might spook even the most hardcore cellphone user:

"They said electromagnetic radiation emitted by mobile and cordless phones can damage cells, making tumours more likely."

One of Mr. Marcolini's experts told a U.K. paper that the court's decision will "open not a road but a motorway to legal actions by victims. We're considering a class action."

Even though the World Health Organization has expressed caution regarding cellphone use, government agencies like Britain's Health Protection Agency are not too concerned, a spokesman telling the Telegraph that the "scientific consensus is that mobile phones do not cause cancer."

We hope that last part is true, because the alternative might see a new rise in Bluetooth headset use, and no one wants that.

(Photo: FCC)

If you were somehow tricked into thinking you still had any semblance of privacy in our great nation, please think again. Wired reports that the federal government has stated that you have "no reasonable expectation of privacy" when it comes to location data transmitted by your cell phone, thus giving them the right to review your location history without a warrant.

That's the argument the government is making in a re-trial about a drug dealer after the Supreme Court ruled that its use of GPS tracking on the defendant constituted an illegal search.

Writes Wired:

The Obama administration told a federal court Tuesday that the public has no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in cellphone location data, and hence the authorities may obtain documents detailing a person’s movements from wireless carriers without a probable-cause warrant.

The administration, citing a 1976 Supreme Court precedent, said such data, like banking records, are “third-party records,” meaning customers have no right to keep it private.

Burner cells--even if they are shitty flip phones--are starting to look pretty good right about now, and we're not even tin foil hat enthusiasts.

Justice Breyer

The Supreme Court's attempts to reconcile the principles of the Constitution with modern-day technology the founding fathers would likely have found unfathomable has led to some laughable arguments in the past. But this one took a turn for the paranoiac—perhaps rightfully so.

The court has yet to decide on the case of Antoine Jones, a nightclub owner in Washington who was sentenced to life in prison for conspiring to sell cocaine. The evidence for his conviction was a GPS device police placed in his Jeep Grand Cherokee without the proper warrant to track his movements for a month. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit overturned the conviction claiming the amount of information collected violated Fourth Amendment rights protecting unlawful search and seizure.

As The New York Times points out, the arguments in favor of allowing tracking were rather extremist:

"But Michael R. Dreeben, a deputy United States solicitor general, said there were no constitutional limits to the government’s ability to track people’s movements in public. He said a device surreptitiously attached to clothing would be permissible so long as it did not convey information from inside a home. He added that the police could track the movements of the justices’ cars without a warrant."

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg paraphrased the government's argument thusly: “an electronic device, as long as it’s not used inside the house, is O.K.”

Mr. Dreeben allowed for the possibility that different statutes might apply to cars, but it was enough to send Justice Stephen Breyer back to high school English.

That means, Justice Stephen G. Breyer told Mr. Dreeben, that “if you win this case, then there is nothing to prevent the police or the government from monitoring 24 hours a day the public movement of every citizen of the United States.” And that, Justice Breyer said, “sounds like ‘1984.’ ”

The other justices took the opportunity to pile on the Big Brother scenarios:

Justice Sonia Sotomayor indicated that the scenario might have already arrived. “It wouldn’t take that much of a budget, local budget, to place a GPS on every car in the nation,” she said.

Dun-dun! Okay, everyone get off the internet and go check your glove compartments.