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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."
Question: How the hell do you smuggle a cell phone into prison?
Answer: You don't. You bribe/threaten a guard.
How can a local entity possibly have the technical expertise and know how to operate any kind of jamming equipment safely? There's a reason they are illegal for the public and even rarely used in the fed government: They are freaking dangerous and jarring to law-abiding citizens.
Am I wrong?
The dumb public will be just fine with it riiight up until the first lawsuit from some person who's relative died because they couldn't dial 911.
I think it would be better to circle a prison with micro-cells and intercept all cell phone transmissions, and only allow through nominated numbers. This could also have the effect of being able to triangulate the position of illegitimate phones when they are used.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Distilling your idea: Setup cell phone towers in prisons. The phones will connect to these towers since they are the strongest. Make these towers "dead" cells".
I guess as long as you set them up inside the prison blocks of solid concrete walls and steel it could work. *shrug*
> have one of the inmates smuggle in a jammer with the help of the warden/prison officials in exchange for access to the library or internet
Actually the private prisons have some internet access. They also use the prisoners as call center employees. I think 60 Minutes had a program on it.
Better yet, eavesdrop on these!
Catch criminals on either end of the line talking crime most of the time...
Jamming, OTOH, in any location just keeps victims or witnesses of crime from reporting it or calling for help.
Frink: Here is an ordinary square.
Wiggum: Whoa, whoa, slow down, egghead!
About a dozen states â" Oregon, Arizona, California and Iowa, among others â" have call centers in state and federal prisons, underscoring a push to employ inmates in telemarketing jobs that might otherwise go to low-wage countries such as India and the Philippines. Arizona prisoners make business calls, as do inmates in Oklahoma. A call center for the DMV is run out of an all-female prison in Oregon. Other companies are keeping manufacturing jobs in the USA. More than 150 inmates in a Virginia federal prison build car parts for Delco Remy International. Previously, some of those jobs were overseas. At least 2,000 inmates nationwide work in call centers, and that number is rising as companies seek cheap labor without incurring the wrath of politicians and unions. At the same time, prison populations are ballooning, offering U.S. companies another way to slash costs.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/employment/2004-07-06-call-center_x.htm
And they work for $200 dollars. A month. I'm glad that the prisoners get to do something productive...but it feels kind of weird/prison-industrial complexish. =0
I was under the impression that prisons currently have the right to listen to phone calls/visits that don't involve lawyers, most courts would extend it to illegal phone calls.
I don't preview or spellcheck.
With this the police can seize cell phones with evidence before the data is uploaded?
I missed a commercial!
Seriously, it's for the the public good. You don't want people to be able to upload the videos before their phones are stolen...
Do you have ESP?
Wouldn't something like conductive paint or mesh/window films be more effective? Prevent RF from entering or leaving, and the problem is solved passively.
Freedom for you, but not for me I guess. Parents with kids out on a date night that want to get a text message if something goes wrong. Professionals on call won't ever be able to see a movie or go to the theater.
You sir are part of the problem. Sorry for the harsh tone, but the hypocrisy over rights on the internet is just staggering.
And block all phone use by guards, prison management, and visitors?
All CELLphone use. The guards, management and visitors would still have access to the land lines.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
As the attackers in Mumbai made use of phones and other mobile devices the NYPD wants top have the ability to cut mobile phone access as and when needed. As reported in Danger Room a short while ago http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/01/nypd-eyes-disru.html
The funny thing about this is that however many geeks there are that think it'd be fun to set up a jammer there's as many geeks out there who'd like nothing more than to track them down. I can see amateur radio operators having a field day (pun intended) hunting them down and helping the FCC hand out fines. No doubt crushing fines both because of the implications for emergency handling and because it's a strike against the telecoms. Tracking down cell phone jammers could become a major sport for radio operators if they become more common.
You gotta find first gear in your giant robot car
Yes, because no-one ever has emergency issues ... say, for example, a heart attack while at the theater.
They don't need the ability to jam cell phone signals to stop them from being used in prisons.
Prisons are controlled facilities that can be designed from the ground up to provide ways of stopping unauthorized signals.
For example, by lining cells with tin, special paint, and other materials that block certain radio frequencies.
This could be done to the entire building, and would be much more effective and safer than periodic localized jamming during an emergency.
They could even be designed so that the measures are just strong enough to prevent cell phones from working, but still allow personnel to carry radios and other equipment with higher power transmitters, that would not be significantly impacted.
Another possibility is to place monitoring apparatus in each cell, and if a prisoner uses a cell phone or other radiocommunication device, a detector will trigger an alarm identifying the specific area from which a cell phone has been used.
The method of detection still allows any cell phone that happens to be in a prison facility in event of a life-threatening emergency, as a means to summon aid.
Do you really expect the police to understand something like this? These are the guys who got to where they are by brute force - not by understanding things.
That's why they hire people who do understand these things to do it for them. Prison guards probably also don't understand the video monitoring systems they use, but that doesn't keep them from using them after they've been setup. It obviously doesn't take a genius to press a button to jam cell phone signals.
Have prisons work a deal with the cellular network folks to set up some low power micro cells covering the prison facilities. All calls will be routed through the prison cell site. Legitimate users (staff) can have their phones 'whitelisted' to bypass the filtering and surveillance applications running on the base station.
Think of the intelligence the anti-gang units can accumulate by listening in on calls. Or even checking to see who is calling whom. Legitimate prisoner calls (from prison phones) are subject to monitoring, so this wouldn't be a big legal hurdle.
Have gnu, will travel.
Prisons keep convicts separate from the the rest of the population. They also, through their existence and the existence of prison rape, serve as a deterrent to crime, particularly the sort of white collar crime ordinary people might consider committing (embezzlement, fraud, DMCA violation).
Yes, thank you for using your awesome powers of ignorance and reading comprehension to make my point for me.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Cheaper than jamming, why not set up wireless signal detectors (like those used to detect the presence of WiFi networks) to allow the pin-pointing of illegally smuggled in devices. These would cost a fraction of cost of jamming devices, not have questionable legalities and would allow prosecution of those caught illegally using devices inside goal.
First, cell phone tower antennas can be made highly directional, providing coverage over a small arc. It would be a Small Matter Of Engineering to design a series of antennas that would effectively cover a prison and not the surrounding area or even the parking lot.
Extending the idea of directionality further, cell towers today can already provide the location of the phones being used to within a few hundred yards. It should technically be possible to obtain the cooperation of the local cell providers to identify calls emanating from within a certain area, with NO additional investment of hardware. CALEA might even give them the authority to do so with no new statutes.
Next, this could be done selectively. Start with the Federal Supermax prisons. Then extend it to maximum security facilities, then to medium security if required.
Also note, the cell towers could be functional, yet still record conversations and ESNs and IMEI numbers. That would permit their use in emergencies or by visitors, all of whom could be notified of the monitoring by signs as they enter the prison. It would be important for lawyers to understand that client-attorney privilege would not exist over their cell phones within the vicinity of such a prison. Or perhaps they could go so far as to require registration of IMEI numbers by all visitors/employees and block calls from unidentified phones, or from phones where the visitor has left. Tracing the phones back to the guards or visitors who provide them would provide incentive to block their entry in the first place.
Yes, jamming would be cheaper, but could really cause problems in a true emergency.
John
Yep, people had heart attacks before - and they died. Now we have paramedics, automated defibrillators, cell phones, and other tools. So let's try a few scenarios:
Yeah, that's a good argument ... </sarcasm>
I wonder how many people were saved because someone warned them of the danger by calling/texting them.
boldly going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse
The main problem I could see with cell jamming during a terrorist or similar criminal situation is that there is a small possibility that maybe, one of the victims could be trying to secretly call 911 (or whatever the local equivalent is) to try to give police information about the situation inside the building (or vehicle, etc).
Whether things are handled by jamming or by a micro-cell solution or some other way, there's one big problem. A lot of prisons are very close to major interstates or population centers. The main max in Texas is right next to I-35 a few hours south of Dallas, a road that carries so much traffic, you will rarely get up to the speedlimit. Colorado has a facility that, if memory serves is right off I-70.
Any solution that is sufficient to cut off all the prisoner cell phones is going to interfere with the use of cellphones nearby... like those people on that freeway next door.
The freeway next to I-35 in Texas has posted signs (no joke) warning people to not pick up hitch hikers. They existed long before four prisoners escaped a few years back. Two or three of those prisoners made it out of state. One made it about a thousand miles.
If they put in jammers, my suspicion is that the next prison break is going to involve prisoners walking up on to the freeway and using a rock to take out a windshield and a driver. I'm sure they'll say a few thanks for the cellphone jammers as they drive away and the other drivers realize they can't call 911...
FWIW, if you want to get between DFW and the other major metros in Texas, like Austin, you've got roughly two choices: I-35 and a 350-400 plod along two lane Farm to Market roads frequented by farm tractors. Talk about a looong day.
the clock on the wall says 4 til 7
A cell phone is faster though, and sometimes that time counts.
I doubt that. Remember, this is a movie theatre we're talking about. You know -- dark room with loud sound? How do you expect the 911 operator to understand you without going out of the auditorium to talk to her? And once you're out, you can tell the manager to call an ambulance just as quickly as you can dial it yourself on your cell phone. And the wired phone connection will probably be more reliable. Plus the manager is in a position to shut the show down and request medical help from other patrons -- you can't put the movie on "pause" when you're sitting in the auditorium.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
The 13th Amendment specifically allows involuntary servitude as part of the punishment for a crime of which one has been duly convicted.
"Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
Is conflict with Amendment 8 a problem here?
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
This is common practice in Turkey. In Istanbul near the prisons, it is hard to speak via mobile phones. They can not stop mobiles, so they jam the signal.
Ent Treebeard
And naturally, as criminals, they would never ever do anything they were not allowed to do.
That's why gun laws have stopped gun violence.
Stopped gun violence where exactly?