Local Police Want To Jam Wireless Signals

The Washington Post is reporting on the growing pressure from state and local law enforcement agencies for permission to jam wireless signals the way the Secret Service and the FBI can. Officials especially want to be able to drop a no-call blanket over local prisons around the country from time to time. "...jamming remains strictly illegal for state and local agencies. Federal officials barely acknowledge that they use it inside the United States, and the few federal agencies that can jam signals usually must seek a legal waiver first. The quest to expand the technology has invigorated a debate about how widely jamming should be allowed and whether its value as a common crime-fighting strategy outweighs its downsides, including restricting the constant access to the airwaves that Americans have come to expect. ... Critics warn of another potential problem, 'friendly fire,' when one agency inadvertently jams another's access to the airwaves, posing a safety hazard in an emergency. [CTIA spokesman Joe] Farren said there are 'smarter, better and safer alternatives,' such as stopping inmates from getting smuggled cellphones in the first place or pinpointing signals from unauthorized callers."

Comments

I want one too!

[phantomfive]

Seriously, a cell phone jammer is the greatest testing device I ever had, when I was working on mobile projects. Think about in theaters, or just to watch people's faces when their call drops every five minutes on the train. Sorry I sound sadistic, but everyone has that side of them they should let out once in a while.

Re:This will come up

[Rasperin]

Kill criminals... solve the problem of crime really fast.

Bad idea!

[GameboyRMH]

Prisoners will communicate in (very complicated and secure, believe it or not) code with their "business associates" on the outside, it will lead to a big increase in gang violence.

Also the PCs, even if you give them a locked-down Knoppix-like read-only OS, will rarely be used for anything good. The vast majority of prisoners would be too stupid or destructive to use the computer for anything constructive. The best-case scenario you could get with a computer is that it would only be used for looking at porn, running scams etc. In practice it would also be used as a bludgeon and as the best source of shank-building material they could ever dream of. Heck the smart ones might even figure out how to make deadly stun guns with the capacitors in the PSUs!