Isn't the real problem the extent of the damage, harm and evil that can be done by people who are 'just people like everyone else,' that are 'just trying to do their jobs.'
See Millgram experiment and any totalitarian state ever.
Note that I am not saying that the US is totalitarian but that the wide-spread belief that you mention can be completely valid and you can still be in trouble.
1) the milgram experiment was a case of academic fraud.
2) you'd think that on the 25th anniversary of the Tienanmen square massacre people would back off off the claims that the US is even a little bit totalitarian. 25 years ago this day, the Chinese state killed at least 1000 people and imprisoned, tortured and worse several tens of thousands more. Why ? Because a student union tried to create a second political party (and was succeeding). And no one cares today. The US has a long, long way to fall before getting to that level.
3) why is tracing cell phones such a problem ? How can anyone possibly believe anything other than that cell phones constantly broadcast who they are and their number to companies that are logging those broadcasts ? That's how the fucking system works. The police can somewhat shortcut that process to get a little bit more accurate information.
Furthermore the main reason phones are broadcasting their location as accurately as possible is to aim antennas on them ... Why ? Because that way the carrier can support a greater density of phones and a greater density of antennas. Before long this will be accurate to within a few centimeters (and I don't imagine it will stop there). If you want more bandwith on mobile, we have to do this.
I feel this is like complaining your car sometimes drives ... Yes the effect on privacy is bad (assuming the compromise of turning off transmitters is too much to ask, as it clearly is), but it's how the technology works.
This is the same principle at work as "information wants to be free". Copyrighted works are available for free, because the technology to block transmission will always lose to technology to transmit. But the same goes for any information. There are a million valid reasons to broadcast information about you and of around you, one of which is a cell phone network. That means that where you are, what you're doing, who you're with ... will tend to become public information over time.
My problem with all this is that the ACLU had to fight to uncover what the police were doing. Then, in order to protect law enforcement secret technology, the Federal government also jumped in.
As usual, technologies and laws that were brought in to "fight terrorism" now find their way into domestic non-terrorist-fighting contexts; then the government wants to exert its special powers that we gave it to fight terrorism against us the citizens.
It's always a fight to prevent those in power from seizing more and more power.
2) In some ways, the Chinese have the advantage there, because the state perceived that a new political party with a few thousand members might have been a threat to their power. In the US, you can form as many new political parties as you like, but not one of them will ever get anyone elected. Tanks do not show up at organization meetings because they are not necessary. Change is prevented by other, less visible means. No one dies before the cameras.
3) The problem is that private and usually harmless behaviors have become increasingly criminalized. As Cardinal Richelieu put it, a devious prosecutor can find a capital crime in as little as six lines written by an innocent. When the state records all that you do, the only thing required to destroy you absolutely is a reason to look you up in the index.
We have good reasons to value privacy and pseudoanonymity. I, for one, would like to be able to pick my nose and scratch my balls sometimes, without fearing that someone is watching--or even recording it for my later humiliation.
As for those antennas? They can be aimed via computer algorithm, without ever involving a human. Beyond that point, no one needs to know where my phone is. Even in the most lenient scenario, where the company actually needs to analyze patterns of phone locations to provide service, it is not necessary to uniquely identify those phones or connect them with a person.
1) Don't know but people can do some pretty evil things when part of a system.
2) I don't think that the US is totalitarian but it is worth fighting to keep it that way (likewise the UK where I am) before it gets to that point. I'm coming to think that elections are a fairly minor part of freedom (though still important) and the critical parts are the checks and balances and the the limits on authority and government power and centralisation of that power. And that the situation is not as bad (or even nowhere near as bad) as a brutally repressive totalitarian regime at one of its worst points is not the comparison that should be being make. The US should be comparing itself against the most free countries and its own ideals not against some of the worst things.
3) No problem at all but law enforcement should show probable cause and get a warrant first in most circumstances before interfering with people's legitimate communications. (It sounds like they are impersonating a cell tower and preventing the communications directly travelling between the local users and the cell company, even if they are forwarding the signal they are still interfering and if they are impersonating the cell company and requesting details from the phone that are only intended for the cell company that sounds like unauthorized access to a computer to me).
See Millgram experiment and any totalitarian state ever.
Note that I am not saying that the US is totalitarian but that the wide-spread belief that you mention can be completely valid and you can still be in trouble.