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FCC Proposes $48,000 Fine To Man Jamming Cellphones On Florida Interstate
New submitter freddieb writes: "An individual who had been jamming cellphone traffic on interstate 4 in Florida was located by FCC agents with the assistance of Hillsborough County Sheriff's Deputies. The individual had reportedly been jamming cellphone traffic on I-4 for two years. The FCC is now proposing a $48,000 fine for his actions. They say the jamming 'could and may have had disastrous consequences by precluding the use of cell phones to reach life-saving 9-1-1 services provided by police, ambulance, and fire departments.'"
It's just disgusting how many people use their cell phones while driving.
The dude should certainly be punished, and a punitive fine like that sounds fairly reasonable to me. No sense clogging up the jails even further over what amounts to vandalism of a sort.
Definitely stopped several talking and driving accidents. This needs to be weighed fairly on the scales of justice.
I wonder if it took more than $48k in tax payer dollars to fund the two year man hunt to catch this dangerous criminal. (/sarcasm)
Dissenter
"There is no knowledge that is not power."
There is probably a better chance he'd be struck by lightning than interfere with a 911 call.
Unless the guy is a professional driver. In which case I definitely understand why he had the jammer.
If it were up to me, no call except 911 could be made while the vehicle is in motion.
Now, if it was a movie theater, I could see someone jamming cell phones. But on a road? Why?
Was he using an over-powered machine and doing it by mistake? Was he just insane?
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I drive my car every day and *could* kill someone with it through inattentiveness. I've even been intentionally inattentive before. Results matter. Is there any evidence that this actually did impede 911 calls, or are they just saying that to artificially lend gravity to the situation and secure a more favorable plea bargain, and get that next promotion?
By blocking the calls the guy stopped 911 calls from happening in the first place. He should be given a medal for saving lives.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
So jamming cellphone traffic is a crime, but what about people jamming real traffic? Like Chris Christie and goons.
The Slashdot Beta is already having disastrous consequences on this website. The beta site just crashed my browser, and while there currently is an option to proceed to the old version (which I managed to click, just in time, after restarting my browser), I'm sure that even this option will soon disappear.
I'm not an old timer ranting just for the heck of it, (Disclaimer: I've just been on this website for close to 6 years now, five of those were during my engineering degree. Note that 6 years is a very short period of time, compared to some of the commenters who frequent this website, they've been here for much longer, though the way things are going, I doubt that they're going to stick around). The beta is truly unusable, is just a blatant advertisement for tech jobs by the new owners of this website, and destroys the comment system entirely.
I don't come here to read "News for Nerds", because the submissions made these days are just a blatant waste of time. What I do come here for are the comments. There is an absolute wealth of experience among the users on this website, from system admins to web developers to people with all sorts of careers, and from all sorts of backgrounds, not just technology. I come here to read their comments. This is also one of the greatest places to find absolute gems of wit (+5 Funny, I'm looking at you). I attempted to use the Beta to this purpose, but it failed miserably.
TL:DR; I come here for the comments, I won't be coming here any more if the beta becomes the default. Yes, this is a rant. Yes, this is offtopic. Yes, this will be modded as such. But I just needed to say that. Thanks.
If the government had actually dealt with known issues regarding driving and cell phone use, his vigilantism would not have been necessary. I know I have thought about doing the same thing myself. And I wonder how many politicians receive contributions from the cell phone companies.
Still... he committed a crime and should be punished. Civil disobedience requires a willingness to accept the punishment to help solve the problem.
Brought to you by: "Al"toids - the curiously weird mint.
I hate when people talk, text and drive. You jam somebody, they are going to take the phone from their head and try to call again, or at least figure out what is going on. This is probably more distracting than just talking to somebody.
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
I don't know if this has occurred to you or not, but not everyone inside a car is driving a car. And if you do get into a car accident, it would be nice if you or someone in the area could call emergency services.
On April 29, 2013, the Enforcement Bureau (Bureau) received a complaint from Metro PCS4 that its cell phone tower sites had been experiencing interference during the morning and evening commutes in Tampa, Florida. Based on the location of the towers and the times that the alleged interference occurred, the Bureau determined that the likely source of the interference was mobile along Interstate 4 between downtown Tampa and Seffner, Florida.
On May 7, 2013, agents from the Bureau’s Tampa Office (Tampa Office) initiated an investigation into this matter and monitored the suspected route. On May 7, 8, and 9, 2013, the agents determined, using direction finding techniques, that strong wideband emissions within the cellular and PCS bands (i.e., the 800 MHz to 1900 MHz band) were emanating from a blue Toyota Highlander sport utility vehicle (SUV) with a Florida license plate. On May 9, 2013, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office (Hillsborough Sheriff), working closely with the agents from the Tampa Office, stopped the Toyota Highlander SUV. The Hillsborough Sheriff deputies reported that communications with police dispatch over their 800 MHz two-way portable radios were interrupted as they approached the SUV.5
So it took them a grand total of three days to find the guy. The two years figure comes from his own admission of how long he's been using the jammer.
There was a young lady in High Point, NC that died in a car accident a day or two ago right after she'd posted to Facebook.
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2014/04/28/pkg-fatal-car-accident-facebook-messaging.wghp.html
Would you be as flippant about this if he had been jamming your wireless router or television signals for two years?
Is it worth it to maintain free communications for people? Passengers in the cars were unable to call anyone as well. It's arrogant behavior to think you have the right to jam people's communications. I think a little jail time would be appropriate as well, or at least about 200 hours of community service picking up trash on the roadside.
If you read the article, you'll notice he was operating the jammer from his car while driving. It's a lot harder to track down a moving jammer than a stationary one.
Why can't he just shoot at road signs like most normal people?
Particularly since the FCC levied a similar fine against BART in August of 2011...
Oh, wait. They didn't do anything at all then. But they're coming down like Thor's hammer on Florida Man.
How does that saying go? "You're everything we've come to expect from years of government training".
I wonder if it took more than $48k in tax payer dollars to fund the two year man hunt to catch this dangerous criminal. (/sarcasm)
Enforcing the laws and regulations is often considered an end unto itself, and not a revenue generating device. Little profit flows into public coffers for incarcerating people, after all.
I am not a crackpot.
Imagine he was in an accident and rendered unconscious with his car still powering the jamming device. Assume it was a single car accident, no need to be cruel to others. Anyhow, nobody can call for help and nobody thinks to switch off the ignition in his vehicle which is clearly not running. If it jammed first responders communication equipment too, all the better. He could enjoy a nice long wait for an ambulance.
Why do you think that is relevant? Isn't there value to lawfulness? Most people agree that it is worth the cost to pay for enforcement of laws. We often spend more than $x to catch a thief that stole $x. That's the normal machinations of policework.
So he can have his jollies? You mean so he can prevent assholes that pay more attention to their phones than the damned road from causing accidents and killing more people. Look at which one effects the safety and lives of people as opposed to the one that inconveniences them for a little bit of time each day.
We didn't have cell phones. Or car accidents. Steve Jobs was still alive.
It was paradise.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
30 years ago you had to wait for someone to go get help, which could take quite a while. A lot more people died in car accidents back then. . .
On the flip side of the coin, jamming cellphone signals would eliminate some texting and driving so presumably it could have also saved some lives.
its the driving thats the problem.
So Until they get fully automated cars, the states should require that all cars and trucks have a 'crew' of 2.
I to drive
the other to navigate and communicate
The second person would not have to be a licensed driver, nor an adult (but there would be a minimum age)
Anyone who still retains even a shred of common sense knows that driving while texting / talking / playing Angry Birds on the damn phone is stupid. Yet, I would guesstimate somewhere around one in four do it anyway. Next time you're at a red light, watch crossing traffic and count how many are on their damn phones as they go by :|
:| Compare it to how many we hear about because they CAN'T PUT THE FUCKING PHONE DOWN for even a moment of their life. I mean really ? Driving. The ONE thing you need to do while driving is pay attention full time to the environment around you and a good portion of folks are completely incapable of it.
Their stupidity puts more people at risk and kills / injures far more people every year ( accidents due to driving while distracted ) than any Jammer will ever come close to touching. Ever heard of a fatality pile up on the freeway because someone was running a jammer ? Yeah, me either
The reason the guy resorted to such measures is simple. Inaction to stop the practice from the usual legal and / or technological channels. Wasn't very smart about it in that he let it run full time ( put a switch on it, trigger as you need to, much harder to find ) but, the world is full of folks who don't think things through very well before acting.
The fine is excessive IMO as you can drive down the highway snot-slinging drunk ( a certifiable hazard if ever there was one ) get pulled over, arrested and your fine will be a fraction of what this guys is. The masses cheer and rejoice about the guy getting hit with such a fine. Maybe we should start hitting folks with a $50,000 fine any time you're spotted driving and fiddling with your phone. After all, it's a non-argument that driving while distracted is a danger to everyone yet, nothing is done about it. Thus, this guy decided to take matters on himself.
Hell, I would give him a medal if I had any to give.
The human species overall is pretty stupid. We're one of the few ( if not the only ) that is intelligent enough to know when something is probably a dumb idea, but do it anyway. Then question when the outcome is a negative one.
When people yapping on their cell are a bigger threat than drunk drivers it is great to see them wasting our tax dollars going after a guy who was stopping them.
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/20...
http://www.nsc.org/safety_road...
http://www.businessinsider.com...
http://www.caranddriver.com/fe...
I can add as many other citations as you'd like.
I thought about doing the same thing for when I'm on my motorcycle, as often as I've been nearly hit or run over by idiots on cell phones.
Then the thought occurred - if the call suddenly drops, what is the first thing a person will do? Look at the screen on their phone to see if the call is still active, and then attempt to redial.
Result, now idiot is focuses ENTIRELY on their phone, instead of partially on driving.
This seems like a miniscule fine, I guess I was extremely incorrect in my belief... I had just always heard that jamming cell phones would result in being arrested.
They say the jamming 'could and may have had disastrous consequences by precluding the use of cell phones to reach life-saving 9-1-1 services provided by police, ambulance, and fire departments.'"
Remember when cell phone first start becoming popular, and people were told specifically they were not meant for emergency communications?
The FBI and law enforcement do not like people interfering with their ability to track and monitor the citizenry. Naturally they would apprehend this terrorists quickly.
I love living in the corporate police state where I know I am free.
Totally agree on the community service.
You think you own this piece of highway, hotshot? Alright, then, you get to keep it clean for the next 6 months.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
In the article it states that the Sheriffs lost contact with dispatch too as they neared the car. So ignore his supposed noble effort to stop cell use while driving, he was actually endangering lives by blocking communications for first responders.
Welcome to internet libertarianism: where a thought experiment is considered complete as soon as someone thinks of the first externality, and law takes a back seat to opinions.
Aggressive driving and speeding are not specifically correlated with distracted driving, and in my experience, present a much more severe hazard to other motorists.
An alert motorist can spot a distracted driver almost trivially: swerving, changing speeds a lot, changing lanes without signaling, stopping harder than necessary when traffic is slowing down ahead, signs of prior (unrepaired) collisions on the vehicle, etc. Once you're aware of it, you know to be careful, and to try to get away from the distracted driver. If they're behind you, slowly letting off your gas will require them to re-focus on the road, while giving them enough reaction time to slow down, after which they'll either get around you, or realize their problem and pay more attention.
In other words, people around a distracted driver can deal with them because the warning signs are telling.
On the other hand, although an aggressive driver is also easy to spot, they are extremely dangerous. Their high speeds, sudden movements, unnecessary amounts of acceleration, and preventing others from getting in front of them, can cause accidents. An aggressive driver is as bad as a drunk driver. You can't mitigate their behavior, because they are active, rather than passive; they are fast rather than slow; therefore they have higher kinetic energy when driving, and are more likely to get involved in fatal accidents than non-fatal ones, and more likely to get involved in accidents in the first place.
The guy in TFA is nuts. Unless he also went around with both hands on the steering wheel, no passengers, and doing the speed limit, he was part of the problem too.
I wonder if it took more than $48k in tax payer dollars to fund the two year man hunt to catch this dangerous criminal. (/sarcasm)
Enforcing the laws and regulations is often considered an end unto itself, and not a revenue generating device. Little profit flows into public coffers for incarcerating people, after all.
Parole officers do. Actually, the entire prison guard/corrections officers income stream comes from there. That and bribes to violate their oaths, construction kickbacks on prisoners. Even judges have been convicted of it.
He'd have probably racked up more than $48,000 in donations from happy moviegoers who don't have to deal with people who are too lazy to walk outside if they have to reply to a text or take a call.
Most jammers work by blasting noise on whatever channels you are trying to block.
Perfect band pass filters are not a thing the exist, especially not for transmitters. Especially not for transmitters cobbled together by some guy on the cheap. The assumption that they do is why they (rightfully) smacked down LightSquared.
So, let's do a little exercise:
First, look at the 800 MHz Band Plan
http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedi...
See that slot right below "Cellular?" You know, that cut-away that has all the "Public Safety" allocations? Now, let's look at a quote from the FCC posting:
"According to deputies from the Sheriff’s Office, communications with police dispatch were interrupted as they approached Mr. Humphreys’ vehicle."
The jammer was blocking police radio. Not just cell phones. He was actively interfering with public safety communications. NON-CELLULAR public safety communications.
Personally? $48,000 is getting off easy. I'd add another order of magnitude onto it.
http://wtkr.com/2014/04/26/woman-posts-about-pharrells-happy-on-facebook-seconds-before-dying-in-crash/
Woman posts about Pharrell’s ‘Happy’ on Facebook seconds before dying in crash. She had been taking selfies of her driving her car all morning.
It sounds like it could have been a BDA gone into a regeneration loop. Not that uncommon.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
I don't see the motivation to be driving around with a cell phone jammer in your car?
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
This should have been closer to $500. It's more serious than speeding, but not in and of itself not life-threatening. Any claims otherwise are flawed logically. If your going to claim that he caused peoples deaths by blocking the cell signal your forgetting that the people using the cell phones were the ones performing unsafe actions. Loss signals happen and simply because he caused them doesn't equate to responsibility for other peoples death. It was other peoples (the cell phone users actions that were unsafe). You also can't really argue (at least not without throwing logic out the window) that he prevented or was likely to prevent (in any significant way) people from reaching emergency services. Remember this guy was moving. A user trying to call 911 isn't likely going to be moving. They'll end up pulling over or already be stopped. The 911 call is either going to go through or its going to go through in short order. No significant delay would have resulted. Not compared to any delay that would have resulted 30 years ago or even delays today where people are out of cellular range (and as much as you think you always have a signal you don't, most people will be in areas without signal throughout the day, be it in a building that blocks the signal due to construction materials, under a bridge, or simply in-between coverage areas, or for some other reason).
C'mon, cell service cuts out all the time. Calls drop, phones misbehave, bluetooth hiccups, batteries die, there's a 1001 ways a cell phone can stop working as expected during a call, especially in motion on the highway.
Saying he's responsible because someone decided to prioritize communicating over driving or navigation and had an accident is ridiculous. What's next, blaming ATT/Verizon/T-Mobile/Sprint for "causing" accidents because they lack perfect coverage? Maybe blaming Apple or Google or Samsung for the same reason?
YOU are responsible for your car while driving, if your gadget fucks up and you feel the need to futz with it, pull over.
But I was too cheap to buy the jammer.
He was just making the users of the cellphones aware of his premium waves package, that they can buy, so they can use an uninterrupted service.
I think driving on it in the morning was punishment enough.... (that's live - check it out during east-coast rush hour)
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
the states should require that all cars and trucks have a 'crew' of 2. I to drive the other to navigate and communicate
The second one can shovel coal into the engine's firebox, too.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
In 'murrica, we don't take kindly to the government attempting to deprive us of convenience, be it drugs, porn, junk food, birth control, or cellphones. Why? Because in every case they _completely_screw_up_ the attempt. Instead, we prefer that the government release regulations, standards, and establish fines, so that the "rule of law" becomes a tool in the hands of people who are in turn expected to _govern_themselves_. (And, when we violate regulations, we deserve a good whuppin')
Likewise, we all hate this dick with his cellphone jammer because he's doing exactly what some commie fascist government would do. No sir, not here in 'murica. No sir I don't like it.
So when you say "government has failed to act", what you are doing, by and large, is pointing out a good thing!
If he stayed on the same road for the whole two years, then accident statistics would help or harm his case. I'm curious which.
You can't only jam cell phones of people in cars. He was jamming everyone, regardless of whether or not they were driving, on the side of the road, two streets down, in their apartment. Clearly he had a powerful enough jammer that they were able to triangulate his position based on it's emissions. This is not some pocket version that only worked for a few meters around his vehicle.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Probably at least as sure as the FCC's claim that it "could and may have had disastrous consequences by precluding the use of cell phones to reach life-saving 9-1-1 services provided by police, ambulance, and fire departments."
I would say his use of the jammer "could and may have stopped numerous accidents"
Read it again. He was doing this for TWO YEARS.
It took them that long to get a report about it. And then it took 3 days.
Where can I get a jammer? I promise I would use it with the same discretion and concern for others shown by the morons who shout into their cel phones for an hour on the train.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
From another article,
"Humphreys told the FCC he used the jammer to keep people from talking on their cellphones while driving. Talking on a cellphone while driving is legal in Florida, even without a hands-free kit, though texting while driving is banned. Using a cellphone jammer is illegal for everyone but federal law enforcement, regardless of intent, according to the FCC."
http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/...
A moving jammer, that doesn't center on the phone caller seems more disruptive rather than less. If your call drops while in motion you're going to retry. This is more helpful to prevent calls in the first place - but even that means they go for their phone. It seems to me the talking isn't the distraction AS much as the dialing.
Joseph Elwell.
Because I'm sure he was careful and made certain his jammer was targeted only at the highway and not just a wide blanket jamming everything in its radius.
So if you are an individual and do something like jamming phone calls, but there is no evidence there was no damage, you are still fined. But if a company creates a car with problems, no action is taken till someone or group of people dies.
Given that it's legal to call 911 while driving, or anywhere while a passenger, this was interfering with people's legal rights. Add to that the interference to first responders' communications, and the probability of people getting into an accident trying to figure out why their phone doesn't work (and no one being able to call for help) -- this guy was a danger to those around him, as well as illegally broadcasting.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
are you insane? have you any idea how large and powerful the private prison system is?
Hmm. So I assume they're going to fine the cellphone companies for every person they have not given a cellphone to?
Oh, wait. You're only important if you pay. The rest can DIAF.
What was I thinking.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
So f*cking tired of the beta interface, trying to get back to the classic doesn't work all the time.
Really not interested in the stock images which take up half the screen. There is way to much space, which means a lot less content, scroll, scroll scroll. Enough already.
Looks like it was designed for a tablet, but text when text is scaled up to a readable size, it doesn't wrap (site isn't responsive), SO THEN I HAVE TO SCROLL BACK AND FORTH FOR EVERYF*CKING LINE. Totally unusable!
Off to Alterslash!
I think that either drunk driving is not as dangerous as it is made out to be, or talking on the cellphone is not as dangerous as drunk driving. The reason is that cellphone use in cars has exploded (as it has in general), yet we continue to see a reduction in fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled.
If we go back to 1992, when cell phones were something owned only by the very few and expensive per minute so not used a lot, we have 1.75 deaths/100mvmt. In 2002, when they were getting fairly common, but still not all pervasive (about 49% of people had them), it was 1.51. In 2012 when practically everyone (95% or so) has them, and they do a lot and are the main means of communication, 1.14 (2012 is the last year I can find stats easily for both figures).
Likewise deaths per 100,000 people went down from 15.4, to 14.9, to 10.8.
So though people are driving as much as ever, and cellphones have gone from a rarity to something everyone has in two decades, we see traffic fatalities continue to drop.
That doesn't seem like it should be the case if indeed it is as dangerous as driving drunk. Either it isn't, or the dangers of drunken driving have been vastly overstated.
I'm not dismissing the studies out of hand, but I think that more need to be done, and more controls on things. I think there may be some bias creeping in since there seems to be this want among many researchers for cellphone use in cars to be a bad thing.
It makes me suspicious that something supposedly such a problem could experience such growth, and yet roads could get much safer.
when he gets cancer in a bit from operating a high powered jamming device for so long right next to his junk and needs to be medically castrated justice will be served
Well, he probably also ended up jamming a lot of people people using their phones as navigation units. I keep a few frequently used areas cached in Google Maps, but the rest requires me to have an active data connection.
As a google for "BDA" brings up "British Dental Association" maybe you could be a bit more descriptive?
Are you saying the man accidentally was jamming cell traffic?
I guess it could happen. When I was in high school I built a spark gap and jacobs ladder out of a neon sign transformer. When I turned it on for the first time, the radio I was listening to stopped working. If I had one of these in my trunk driving down the interstate it'd probably render cell phones inoperable, AFAIK I knocked out radios within a larger radius.[1]
[1] "knocked out" here is metaphorical. No radios were harmed, i simply was emitting noise on a wide band that overpowered any FM towers, at least close to the source of interference.
i don't know, I'm pretty sure that jamming Sheriff's communications (read in TFA) is pretty likely to result in a lot of deaths :)
That's the same thing as being jammed.
Who is the victim?
You are an arrogant jerk to to think that someone should be forced to sit in a cage like an animal when no one has been harmed. Sorry, but your lack of morals. Can't make a phone call? Maybe 2c per lost call. This should be a fine of no more than $10.
No victim? No crime.
The problem with the NHTSA stats is that the 30% of accidents being related to distracted driving hasn't changed over the past 40 years. So, cell phone use is the latest punching bag for the problem, but it's not really the causative agent. You can outlaw cell phone use while driving, move to technical implementations where phones are disabled while in transit, and guess what.. about 30% of accidents will still be related to distracted driving.
(btw. those same NHTSA show overall improvement in fatal accidents)
Sorry, Bi-Directional Amplifier. A signal booster.
http://www.wilsonelectronics.c...
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Has anyone stopped to think how many people manage to stay awake because of a cell phone while crawling down the road at the mind numbingly low speed limits we have? I've had a cell phone since '92 and it's never caused an accident or even come close. I have had idiots swerve at me because they were mad at me for talking on the phone but I was alert enough to avoid them. If we didn't have the stupid speed limits I wouldn't talk on the phone while driving. I would actually have something to do that was engaging enough to avoid dying of boredom.
significantly more so actually.
I thought the FCC required these things to not emit interference?
Drive as though your life depended on it... Because it really does!
They do, but they have been know to be incorrectly installed and go into a feedback loop.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
While cars have been getting safer, no doubt about that, if there is another force counteracting that, making driving more dangerous, then you don't expect to see numbers go down so much.
In fact another part of the decreased death rate is cellphones themselves. When an accident happens, cellphones allow first responders to be contacted quickly and help to arrive soon. Seconds count with critical injuries.
But ok, let's take raw accident rate. The Census reports 11.5 million traffic accidents in 1990, 10.8 million in 2009 (that's the range for which they present the data). So here we have an increase in population, a massive increase in the number of cellphones, and yet almost a million less accidents per year.
Except for the fact that you would shut down the real estate, cabbing, trucking, postal, and parcel delivery industries in their entirety. And it would make everyone personally liable for carpooling with co-workers, so let's go on and arrest everyone who drives in the HOV lane.
On second thought, that's probably the dumbest idea I have ever heard regarding distracted driving laws.
Will the affected companies/services who were jammed by this guy decide to take him to civil court ?
If he screwed up the frequencies that other people paid to license, will they launch legal actions to recover money lost by his denial of their use of those frequencies? A few hundred thousand dollars in suits by the wireless phone companies, public safety organizations, etc. could really open the guy's eyes.
ODF
If your only tool is a hammer, you'll approach every problem as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
http://www.kongregate.com/game...
How many points are you getting on that for being in that top 4% percent?
just ban them from driving.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Are you sure? Maybe it depends on the state.