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I've seen an increase in my law practice of divorce cases where a spouse is caught red-handed having an affair. Not in the usual come-home-from-work early and find your spouse with someone else way; instead it's those darn cell phones that blow the whistle on an unfaithful spouse. The most common occurence: a bar-room chat with a paramour, picked up on a cell phone that inadvertently dialed the cheater's home phone while it's innocently sitting in the cheater's pocket.

My advice to clients: Make your life simpler and happier, and don't cheat. My back-up advice: if you do cheat, then for God's sake, turn off your cell phone.

Now, however, I have an update on that advice: Turn off your cell phone AND remove the battery.

According to reports, the United States Government has a new eavesdropping tool that permits them to listen in to your private conversations through your cell phone - EVEN IF YOU AREN'T TALKING ON IT. The key to this technology is the phone's Global Positioning Sattellite Receiver, which evidently not only can annouce to the government where you are, but can also activate your cell phone's internal microphone - even if the phone is turned off. As long as the battery is in the cell phone, whether the phone is on or off, your private moments may in fact not be so private because your phone's microphone can send your conversation to whomever has the means to listen.

This new surveillance techique, referred to as a "roving bug", was exposed in a recent United States District Court decision authored by District Judge Lewis Kaplan.

If you live a clean life, don't break the law, and do nothing in private that you wouldn't mind seeing on the front page of the newspaper, then, by all means, feel free to disregard my advice.

If, however, you aren't one of the 1/2 of 1% who fall within that category: You have been warned.