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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.
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
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.
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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.
If it were up to me, no call except 911 could be made while the vehicle is in motion.
If it were up to me, crashing a car would be illegal - regardless the cause - and nanny government can stay the fuck out of my business.
Seriously. You can murder someone with your car and get a $50 "Failure to Yield" ticket.
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.
If it were up to me, no call except 911 could be made while the vehicle is in motion.
Passengers?
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.
They can't know, because the attempts (if any) were blocked, so they couldn't be logged.
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There's no way to know, because a blocked call wouldn't have gone through. . .
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.
Evidence? Seems to me that it is more likely he could have caused accidents, because now the idiot who was going to make a call (or was in the middle of a call) is going to be looking at his phone to check signal strength, redialing, getting frustated, etc.
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.
It impeded communication between the police communication centre and the police cars. It wasn't just cellphones, he was jamming emergency services communications too. It was the police who complained. He was broadcasting wideband signals between 800MHz and 1900MHz.
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.
Results matter.
So someone who is drunk behind the wheel should not be prosecuted? They haven't hurt anyone yet. Being drunk behind the wheel is not a problem except that it increases the probability of an accident. In many cases probability counts as well. Considering there is a probability of someone dying due to the presence of the jammer it is pretty serious.
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.
Maybe use the airbag switch in concert with a deadman's switch out of reach of the driver.
We didn't have cell phones. Or car accidents. Steve Jobs was still alive.
It was paradise.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Yes, but his mind will now be concentrating inside the car instead of being in some other place while talking on the phone thereby avoiding accidents.
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.
There is a non-zero probability of someone dying due to the presence of pretty much anything. That doesn't automatically make it "pretty serious"
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.
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.
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.
No. No I don't. I mean, maybe someone was saying that, but in practice a goodly number of the early cellphones were bought precisely for emergencies, especially by anxious well-off parents, or teachers supervising school trips, or the like.
You would have no way to know the call failure was the result of jamming.
It sounds like it could have been a BDA gone into a regeneration loop. Not that uncommon.
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I don't see the motivation to be driving around with a cell phone jammer in your car?
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Controllable vs uncontrollable. The presence of radio jammers is controllable. Other factors, not so much.
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.
I'd be happy if the airbag in the passenger seat would just shut up, with our without a cell phone or a deadman's switch.
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
it doesn't matter what they were doing with the cell phone but disrupting the disruptive behavior may just shake the retards into at least focusing on the actual task at hand, which is driving. I can't tell you how many times I get cut off or have to deal with retarded drivers who are too involved in the secondary task of fiddling with their cell phone. Not signalling, pulling out without looking, cutting people off and wandering in the lane. Frankly I believe if you get caught using a cell phone while driving talking or texting you should get your license suspended or at least pay a heavy enough fine to deter the behavior. Even the NTSB says hands free isn't enough and it's time that states and the federal government need to stop bowing down to cell phone companies in this matter, just make it illegal and start suspending licenses or imposing fines because distracted cell phone abusers are as bad as drunk drivers on the road.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
By blocking the calls the guy stopped 911 calls from happening in the first place. He should be given a medal for saving lives.
I sense a fascinating philosophical discussion in the making here. In which system of thought does the prevention of calls to 911 prevent life-threatening situations from taking place? If you can't report an accident, it didn't happen?
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.
You got it, sparky. Making actions which do not harm anyone else illegal is as evil as making "bad" thoughts illegal. Take your "probability" and stuff it where the sun don't shine. Either you victimize somebody, or you don't victimize anybody. The outcome makes a difference.
FYI, there are people who are better drivers with a drink or three in them than certain other drivers who are cold sober. The same with talking on a cellphone while driving.
I don't have any research handy, but I'm pretty sure that of all cell phone tasks, dialing is probably the most distracting and dangerous. Anything that increases the likelihood that a person is going to redial a disconnected call is probably a really bad idea from a safety perspective.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
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.
Either you victimize somebody, or you don't victimize anybody.
Ever heard of "closing the barn door after the horse is loose"? Sure you could prosecute a drunk driver after an accident, if he is still alive, but that does not help the people killed or property damaged in the accident. The DWI laws are there to prevent accidents.
The outcome makes a difference.
By your logic there would be no conspiracy to commit murder charge is the person is still alive. So no more stings where a suspect puts out a contract on someone but the hit man is a cop. Same thing someone firing a rifle at someone else and missing. I guess that is not attempted murder. By the way, jamming in general is illegal in the US so even your 'outcome' argument is spurious.
FYI, there are people who are better drivers with a drink or three in them than certain other drivers who are cold sober.
There are a few people who drive poorly sober and a few people who drive well drunk so your scenario can exist but is the exception. Most sober drivers are better than most drunk drivers. DWI laws are there to deal with most drivers and not the exception. Much in the same way professional race car driver can probably drive most of the Interstates at 120mph quite safely but the limits are still much lower.
Yes, but his mind will now be concentrating inside the car instead of being in some other place while talking on the phone thereby avoiding accidents.
To avoid accidents, it really helps if your mind is concentrating outside the car.
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
Imagine playing a game that requires attention and quick reflexes, like an FPS or racing game. First play the game and note down your score. Then play it again, but this time talk to someone on the phone using a hands-free headset while playing. Is your game score lowered because of talking on the phone?
I'm not sure how that contradicts anything I said. Add to that experiment "take your eyes off the screen and try to dial the phone while playing" and see if it lowers your score even more. One is bad. The other is worse. Making the worse thing happen is not a good idea.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Is "eyes off the screen" a huge problem? You have to take your eyes off the road to change the radio channel or adjust the heat/air conditioning. Similarly, you can make a call to someone with a single tap on a smartphone -- very little time spent looking away from the road. So, my assumption is eyes off the road is not the main cause of accidents but being absent minded while talking is.
Demographic XYZ is more likely to be the perpetrators of crime ABC. So you're suggesting they should be prosecuted proactively because they have a higher probability to commit crime ABC?
That would be taking it one step to far. It is much closer to the following;
1. A behavior (in this case drinking and driving) often leads to undesirable consequences (accidents, injury and many times death in this case).
2. This behavior is a choice. (In this case a drinking driver could not have drank, waited till sober before driving or could have had someone else drive)
3. We make the behavior illegal.
Notice the second part? Being part of a demographic is not a choice.
I can't see how $48,000 that this person probably doesn't have will prevent him from transmitting unapproved RF signals in the future.
Would you do something like that again if you had gone through the legal system and now have your wages garnisheed for $48k? I doubt it. It is also a deterrent to others who would think about doing the same thing.
By the way, nothing short of incarceration will prevent many behaviors. All we can do is deter.
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.
I think the suggestion was that by blocking the calls, the people had to concentrate on driving, thereby preventing the accidents from happening in the first place, which negates the need to make those 911 calls that might have been blocked.
Wow, that was confusing to type.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
Yes, inside the car is way better than the road around the car.
You utterly fail, your license should be revoked if inside the car is where you think your attention belongs as the driver.
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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.
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 :)
Blocking access to a service someone has paid for is "damage." The extent of the injury is mostly financial, and hard to quantify because there are a lot of injured parties who were effected over a two year period (none of whom will actually be receiving compensation). However, it easily could have contributed to personal injury and it would be very hard to know.
The purpose of the fine is not to compensate the injured parties, that would be very hard to do. It is meant to dissuade him and others from undertaking these kind of activities in the future. The jamming was a nuisance and a potential hazard.
Cars are screened for safety before they are allowed on the road, there are a number of safety regulations manufacturers have to meet before they can legally sell a car. Manufacturers are required to recall and remediate defects when they become aware of them, and they are fined if they fail to do so, so this isn't a double standard. Unfortunately, car manufactures sometimes learn of defects from accidents, and they don't always report them. That is a crime, it is not legal for them to do that. But sometimes they do get away with it, much the same way this asshole got away with operating a jammer for two years.
That's the same thing as being jammed.
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.
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.
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
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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.
Sure about which part? I've never seen a state where "distracted driving" wasn't illegal. At best, it's used against people reading the paper while shaving in the driver's seat, but given the number of people I've seen doing that (more than one) I'd expect that isn't heavily enforced, even when blindingly obvious.
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