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FCC Inquires Into Its Own Authority To Regulate Communication Service Shutdowns
New submitter DnaK writes "The Federal Communications Commission is reviewing whether or when the police and other government officials can intentionally interrupt cellphone and Internet service to protect public safety. A scary proposition which will easily become a First Amendment issue. Does the FCC have the authority to [regulate local or state authorities' decision to] take down cellular networks if they determine there is an imminent threat? The FCC is currently asking for public input (PDF) on this decision." According to the article, "among the issues on which the F.C.C. is seeking comment is whether it even has authority over the issue. The public notice asks for comment on whether the F.C.C. itself has legal authority over shutdowns of wireless service and whether it can pre-empt local, state or federal laws that prohibit or constrain the ability of anyone to interrupt service." Maybe they just don't like being upstaged by BART.
Seems to work ok in Caracas, Havana, Damascus, Cairo, Republic of Geogia,. Moscow, and Tiananmen Square. I think the government of every repressive dictatorship should be able to disrupt free speech, and public assembly. What's wrong with that?
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
I would hope that if the threat is significant and "imminent" that the FCC would just do whatever the hell they wanted, laws be damned, on the sole condition that the decision maker is held personally accountable for their decision after the threat has subsided, and that their accountability would be judged by the people.
You're not understanding the context. The FCC is not the one that's shutting down communications.
Public Transit Authorities like the BART are (very stupidly) shutting down the cell networks they have on premises to disrupt the protests against them.
Actually, I just dislike "imminent threat." It sounds like a Hollywood screenplay. Evil Bomber trying to kill The President has placed an explosive device along his route which can be triggered by a phone call and it's up to two cops to track down the bad guy before he sets it off.
I mean, okay, in that scenario, you just say, "Why not just shut down the cell-towers? The phone attached to the bomb can't receive a signal." The President is safe and the two cops can leisurely go about trying to find the bad guy.
The problem comes up, though, that if it's such a good idea, why not just shut down the cell service along The President's route as Standard Operating Procedure. After all, we can't count on the Evil Bomber notifying the police. There could be one out there, so this will prevent it from detonating. Oh, and we should shut it off around whatever place The President is staying, too. For as long as he's staying. After all, it's for his safety. Suddenly, there is no threat--imminent or otherwise. But because you have the capability, why not use it?
What about other situations where there might be a danger? Protesters are known to have bombs. There's a protest planned for tomorrow at City Hall. Maybe it'd be a good idea to shut down cell-phone service--y'know, just in case. After all, we're talking about safety here--you can't be too safe. And, as a by-product, it'll keep them hippy kids from tweetin' and uploading images and videos when the cops go in with their clubs. But that's not what it's about, of course. It's about safety.
Or even worse, someone could use SMS to send a link to a YouTube video he recorded of some birds chirping in the woods.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
What kind of threat could justify interrupting internet and cellphone services?
Let's just say that you're a Bart police officer and that you've just shot a man in the back, after you had already immobilized him on the floor. You better pray that your employer is able to kill all cell phone communications and internet traffic before any cell phone video is uploaded to Youtube, otherwise your quality of life for the next twelve months is going to be seriously threatened.
The airwaves are a government regulated resource which it reserves the right to limit access to at its discretion. Way things are set up, you could quite legally, totally loose access to the airwaves at any time for a verity of reasons. I am fairly confident the constitution protects your right to free speech, not your right to emanate electromagnetic waves at any power level or frequency. One might suggest a 28th amendment establishing that right if it is a major concern. In the end, denying access to wireless communications while inconvenient, does not inhibit the ability to speak, only the ability to disseminate information which isn't a protected right.
You have the right to say, write, or believe what you want. Beyond your mouth, you do not have the right to access the means to tell anyone else.
Remember, you choose to be dependent on your cell phone and the Internet.
IEDs are often cellphone-triggered. That said, it's far more likely that "imminent threat" would be taken to mean "speech we disagree with"...
This will not change things with regard to IEDs, although it may change the IEDs to make them more dangerous. In general, it doesn't matter anyway, since IEDs rarely happen in the U.S., which is where the F.C.C. has jurisdiction, anyway, unless it's in a movie or in a television drama like N.C.I.S.. There is not a lot of unexploded ordinance lying around for the taking.
Another poster suggested a dead-man's circuit so that shutting down the cell access for the bomb is rigged to trigger it. The workaround would be for the authorities to evacuate, THEN shut down the network. The work around for the workaround would be to enable a motion detector, such that evacuation then shutdown would be ineffective.
On the bright side, if they think the way the parent poster does, it will only be a matter of time before it's a requirement to be able to shut down RFID in passports and credit cards, since that can be used to identify targets as well.
Of course that's not possible, but the workaround there, if it was, would be to couple an RFID reader with a motion sensor and use IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) such that you are at risk if you are not carrying an RFID device on the terrorist approved list when you go past the motion sensor.
Or to hack the system to shut down the RFIDs without the threat that the shutdown mechanism was intended to thwart, thereby disrupting commerce, as a terrorist act in itself. Of course ... then aren't the BART authorities who shut down the cell network guilty of a terrorist act? I guess it's an administrative action if I do it and a terrorist act if you do it.
This is of course all ridiculous, and it's clear that what's really going on is a power grab to obtain the ability to shut down BART-like protests and/or flash-mob protests that are only protests when there are no police in the area to interfere with the protests.
-- Terry
The FCC is asking the wrong people. If they are unsure if they have the authority over the decision of local and state governments to take down cellular networks, the very first step should be to ask Congress. The FCC only has the authority that Congress has given it. So, the first step is to ask Congress if Congress believes that the laws that Congress has passed give the FCC this authority. If Congress' answer is no, that is the end of the discussion. If Congress' answer is yes, the next step is to determine whether or not Congress has the authority to regulate the decision of local and state governments to take down cellular networks. That is a more complicated question and more difficult one to answer, but if Congress has not delegated anyone the authority to do so, we do not need to examine the question of whether or not they have the authority to do so.
A more difficult question is whether or not local and state governments have the legal authority to take down cellular networks, and if so, under what circumstances. However, the answer to that is independent of whether or not the FCC has the authority to regulate if and when they do so.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
If something truly is a matter of life and death, then yes of course they should do whatever needs done and let the pundits bitch about their civil rights after. If I were a police officer, agent, or whatever and the only thing standing between me and saving one or more lives was some rule about people's "liberties", I'd tell them to go to hell and do what needed done. That's what any ethical human being should do.
That's not the problem: The problem is that the authority in this country can't be trusted. Decades of abuse of power has led the public to be generally mistrustful of authority -- and with good reason. And more often these abuses, along with their misconduct, mistakes, and every other bad thing gets swept under the rug. People who question it are outed as "terrorists", and put on watch lists for not being patriotic enough.
The question really being asked here isn't if they should have that power or not: It's how the hell can we trust them given how badly they've abused our trust in the past? The fact that this is even newsworthy is pretty telling: We've gotten to the point where we are willing to risk our lives and those of our fellow citizens to try to hold on to what pathetically few civil privileges we have left to us. They aren't even rights anymore: We just don't want to be the next poor bastard to make the evening news so our friends, family, and coworkers can give each other furtive glances at each other and wonder how it ever came to this.
That's the real story: That all levels of government have become so corrupt that the public no longer trusts it even in the face of a clear and present threat.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
The Internet doesn't kill people. People kill people.
Well, I am ALWAYS of the opinion that more communication is better than less. It also lets the authorities more easily monitor the "opposition" in order to detect those with "bad" intentions. If they cut off all cellular communications, then the real terrorists will simple fall back to other means to coordinate their actions, such as public WiFi access points, satellite links, etc.
Don't get me wrong, giving any agency the power to do this is scary as hell to me. And I'm assuming this is not intended as something that would be done long term. However I did not RTFA, so I may be mistaken. Even so, these are supposed terrorists we're talking about. They are not the CIA or a covert branch of a national military. I seriously doubt there are fall back plans or redundancy in most cases. They trigger a bomb with a cell phone. They don't add secondary WiFi or satellite detonation devices.
Hell, I'm not even sure they want to kill civilians in the US anymore. Making failed attempts seems to be more effective at eroding our freedoms and causing civil unrest. If you think about it, during 9/11 civilians were kill and the country became more unified than it had been for 30+ years prior. Because of this two countries were toppled and al-Qaeda was reduced to a shadow of its former self.
Now if you look at what the failed attempts have done, I'd say they've been vastly more successful, especially considering the loss from retaliation of the terrorist group perpetrating the attempt. One guy fails to blow up a bomb in his shoes and now millions of people have to take their shoes off prior to boarding a plane. One guy tries to detonate a bomb in his pants and millions of people have to be irradiated or groped. What has been the financial cost to the US for all of this added "security"? How much money will it cost the economy to disrupt cell phone communications? They don't need to kill us. Just scare us into giving our freedom away and bankrupt the country at the same time.