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FCC Formalizes Massive Fines For Selling, Using Cell-Phone Jammers (networkworld.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Network World: Two years ago the FCC announced its intention to fine a Chinese electronics maker $34.9 million and a Florida man $48,000 for respectively selling and using illegal cell-phone jammers. Today the agency has issued press releases telling us that those fines have finally been made official, without either of the offending parties having bothered to mount a formal defense of their actions. From the press release announcing the fine against CTS. Technology: "[...] The company's website falsely claimed that some jammers had been approved by the FCC, and advertised that the company could ship signal jammers to consumers in the United States." The company did not respond to the FCC's allegations, although the agency does report that changes were made to its website that appear to be aimed at complying with U.S. law. Next up is Florida man, Jason R. Humphreys, who is alleged to have used a jammer on his commute: "Mr. Humphreys' illegal operation of the jammer continued for up to two years, caused interference to cellular service along Interstate 4, and disrupted police communications." Last Fall, a Chicagoan was arrested for using a cell-phone jammer to make his subway commute more tolerable.
Now excuse me while I switch on my alien communication device....
pulse generators count as jamming devices? Or for that matter, anti-cell tower lasers?
please oh please oh please
The FCC takes very seriously is jamming. I think that the 48K fine might be a record forfeiture.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
These people didn't argue so the fine becomes formal. That's how the process works,
but it neither makes the fine appropriate nor does it set followable precedent.
You can rest easy that "CTS" (the Chinese firm -- not its real name) will continue to sell
the jammers under many many other names and the amount they will pay the FCC will
be somewhere around $0.
You can rest easy that just like prisons want to use cellphone jammers https://gcn.com/articles/2013/...
so too do beat cops who stop a motorist on the road. That way they can prevent that
"call to the lawyer" that might help preserve the rights of the individual.
When law-enforcement plays with these toys, that means they too are interfering with
legitimate signals and communication. That takes all the hot air out of the FCC's
"think of the [adult] children [communicating]!" message.
Nobody will pay a fine.
Cellphone jammers will become more ubiquitous... like drones [UASs] only not so popular.
But hey, headlines.
Ehud
Tucson AZ
Do they start fining Law enforcement?
Oh wait, the law doesn't apply to them...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This incident reminds us why Congress is supposed to make laws and determine penalties for breaking them, not unelected regulators.
You don't want a jammer. You want a co-habitator. Something that every 5 seconds sends an intensely loud pulse for 1/20 of a second. Your emergency call: "hi, WGRH is the station that pays" which we all agree is Uber mission critical, especially when you yell it into the phone loud enough to rouse the drunk sleeping under the subway stairs (when you yelled it the ninth time). But your annoying everyone else on the train twenty out of twenty weeks in a row for 90 minutes non-stop deserves a little payback. You are annoying. Now its not polite to shove the Glock(tm) into your face and tell you to shut your pie hole. We all agree on that, but surely a little hearing loss will give you an idea that your caps lock is on. You might consider taking your emergency phone call somewhere else. Thanks for the false incredulity. You haven't had an emergency in your life, and if you did, you could use the emergency phone on the train. But thanks for the tantrum. Oh, my phone, my precious precious phone. My precious.
Can't we 3D print these things by now?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I hope it's not illegal to jam ILLEGAL SPY TOOLS?
Or at the very least I hope they'll actually start cracking down on the gangs and criminal organizations using it?
Hey, if other people on the bus or train are annoying you with their chatter or cell phones, just go with a totally legal, oldschool jammer: http://ajournalofmusicalthings...
HERF
Oceanians live in a constant state of being monitored by the Party, through the use of advanced, invasive technology.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
Doing so will infringe more on others' rights to operate a cellphone than can be justified by allowing any individual the right to jam. That's built into the technology.
This sort of assessment is built into the structure of the laws, and now it has emerged in the form of an administrative measure (backed up by laws that grant the FCC authority to manage wireless spectrum issues),.
You as an individual may or may not agree, but this is just the way the laws are set up ... and now it's backed up by fines.
Arguments about prisons and law-enforcement officers don't cut it, because the same reasoning that found that the interests of would-be jammers are outweighed by those of other members to the public is almost certain to come down on the side of the interest of those with a legitimate interest in jamming cellphone communication.
In other words: law enforcement officers and organisations like prisons are allowed to do what ordinary members of the public aren't.
It can't very well be otherwise, can it? So we'd better get to get used to it.
How about a way to stop idiots blasting terrible music from their phones and annoying everyone else on the train/bus.
These two stories about jammers seem to indicate that the only reason these people got caught is that they had dumb jammers that just continuously broadcast, making their triangulation easy.
Where are the smart jammers that operate at low power thresholds and operate intermittently -- some pattern of briefly on, then off, then on again, in a kind of random backoff cycle before going off? Or have some kind of passive radio detection to not transmit unless there is a nearby handset in use signature?
The idea would be a jammer that produced enough interference to disrupt and discourage use in a narrow local window, but with a limited on profile such that it was much harder to detect.
Smart jammers have been designed and built for decades. Simple barrage or swept frequency jammers are cheap, cheap, cheap and work well if you have a good power advantage over the victim. That's why that's what you're seeing.
Clearly, there *are* people making better jammers - there are a variety of companies that do this mostly for defense dept type applications. There is no legitimate large market for smart jammers, so the jammer makers (e.g. in China) aren't going to invest much money and time in developing them.
The other problem is that as you start having more jammers, the things you are jamming will evolve to have counter counter measures.
to make your commute safer by keeping everyone focused on driving instead of yapping away? Lives could be saved.
try collecting on that...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
There can be no formal defence against violation of FCC rules, because the FCC operates under Administrative Law, which is not subject to oversight, regulation, or even constitutional protections. Administrative Law has the lowest standard of evidence, even lower than Civil Law. Administrative Law Judges are enshrined with the power to adjudicate this evidence and levy fines and penalties without the review of a jury or even an ethics board. Administrative Law is the biggest threat to liberty since Darth Vader.
I now average about 6 telemarketer phone calls per day on my mobile, to the point I have to even shut off vibrate along with the ringer. I know this is more of an FTC issue, but this is becoming ridiculous and 'Do Not Call' is a fucking joke (as is my pre-pay carrier that allows me to block a grand total of 5 phone numbers). If DNC and the carriers (which are no doubt making bank off telemarketers) were serious, we would be able to instantly flag a number calling us directly within the phone interface.
I wish there was a black list phone app that would block (as in not even trigger the phone circuitry) any phone number I flag, but I'm sure such a thing would ironically (or regulatory captured) be expressly forbidden by said FCC.
A HAM radio station is an FCC licensed station. They have the right to transmit, and your equipment (and person) must continue to operate properly in the presence of this transmission an FCC part B device. A HAM radio is *not* a part B device, so this clause does not apply to the equipment at the HAM station.
Sorry, buddy. You're SOL.
FCC rules only apply to FCC employees and those that contracted to comply with them. Nobody else has any obligation as only LAW can rmake requirements or levy fines, and that's not the case.
Ignore the FCC, and ignore all notifications from them.
The subway jammer had to be pretty dumb to be caught. He likely left it running all the time.
If he had simply turned it on for 10 second intervals every several minutes, they never would have found him.
You could a cheap jammer, put a quick circuit in the power portion that turns the power on and off randomly and for random lengths of time (I can think of 2-3 way to do that), and you have something that basically cannot be detected.
>These idiots are supposed to ensure that their installations don't cause harm to others
False. Those people who are geniuses compared to your intellectual status of "potato" actually bothered to read the regulations and understand they are required not to cause interference to other devices.
>but this guy didn't even ask any of his neighbors if they suffered from electromagnetic hypersensitivity like I do
That's probably because he doesn't believe in reiki bullshit because it's fake. He probably didn't ask you if he could buy a fan in case you are hypersensitive to windmills because that's fake, too.
>and despite giving him letters from my doctor he just ignores the issue.
If he is an actual MD, I hope he forwards them to the licensing board and has your fake doctor's doctor license revoked. Hopefully they will also jail him.
The cell phone companies also have the ability to determine who was near the jammer when it was turned on- they can, have, and will correlate this data to find the jammer & operator. When a device with a strong signal suddenly drops off the network, that's a giant red flag.
Is Dynamaite really just Dynamite that has been branded for Pirates?
And why would The Drug Enforcement Agency approve something like that?
Well, at least the ads would be great:
Arrr, smoke yerself some new Dynamaite, It'll blow yer mind!
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
They have to ban talking loudly and endlessly over a cellphone on public transportation then. It is sometimes unbearable and may even constitute a moral torture.
Quick! Before they make jammers illegal. Oh wait, they already are. Anyway, this reminds me of story some years ago about jammers where someone read of earlier story, went to ebay and purchase one and he mentioned, "Now my wife and I can have dinner at our favorite restaurant in peace."
mfwright@batnet.com
So how come the FCC (and other Gov't TLAs) haven't cracked down on email spammers and telephone scammers as well? Also disruptive to communication. Maybe it will take a real weirdo president to put things into perspective. A couple candidates come to mind. And one of them thinks running one's own email system should be just a secure as what the feds can offer. How did Hillary avoid junk mails?
Electromagnetic sensitivity is not a legitimate medical diagnosis, for start. Go to a real doctor and possibly a psychologist to find out what your actual problem is.
Even if it was, the law currently does not cover your situation so they have no power to make him stop. There is some recourse if his transmissions are causing interference to TV and such, and there are rules on how close people can be to emitters (antennas), but that's about it.
...these ham radio weenies who are constantly making us all sick by blasting us with a thousand watts of electromagnetic radiation all the time.
Nope, sorry, don't think so.
In order for him to "blast" you with "a thousand watts of electromagnetic radiation all the time", he would literally have to be at his radio with his PTT (that's "push to talk") button pressed all the time blabbering constantly. Such things are prohibited under FCC regulations, and in reality most HAM transmissions are a few seconds (imagine you're talking on the phone; every time you talk, your PTT switch is pressed, how long does it take you to get a sentence out?). Even if he has his radio on all the time monitoring transmissions, there would be no emitions at all from his antenna.
Also, HAM Radio Operators are only supposed to use as much energy as is necessary to complete the transmission. So even though he may be capable of transmitting "a thousand watts" (actually, I believe the limit is 1500 W, depending on the band), that doesn't mean he's actually using that much power. But even if he is, you probably get more EM exposure by using your computer, smart phone or watching TV than what his rig transmits on an average day.
So quit acting like someone set up a 50,000-watt AM superstation in your back yard! Even if EM sensitivity was a real medical diagnosis, you probably get more EM exposure from your home appliances than what he generates. Unless you live in a shack with no electricity.
In these days of constantly increasingly easier detection of illegal activities the best answer is probably more effort put into policing, with smaller fines, so the problems are actually prevented, and people have the opportunity to actually learn from their mistakes, rather than a few individuals being absolutely devastated by over-the-top penalties. a bit like giving someone a life sentence for littering. It might deter people but the penalty is out of proportion to the problem and is therefore not ethical, and could be abused horribly.
I was to surprised to read that the FCC had actually taken on the authority to ban the sale of jammers. They have always banned the operation of such devices.
A few years ago I filed a complaint with the FCC concerning a seller of GPS jammers. The jammer was amoung thousands of items of general merchandice on sale. I figured the vendor didn't realize that the use of this devices was illegal. I was hoping that an FCC lawyer would inform the vendor of this. The FCC response to my complaint was that I should contact the Federal Trade Commission.
Just when i thought would possible to go to a theatre and not hear someone else phone ring and the important conversation that follows