CTIA seeks to block cellphone jamming demo at DC jail
January 7 2009 - 2:05 pm ET | Jeffrey Silva | RCR Wireless News
The cellphone jamming dispute between the mobile-phone industry and CellAntenna Corp. has dramatically escalated, with a high-profile legal battle playing out in the nation’s capital in advance of a planned demonstration tomorrow at a local prison to show how inmates’ wireless calls can be blocked.
Cellular industry association CTIA today asked a federal appeals court to nix a Federal Communications Commission order permitting the District of Columbia Department of Corrections to host a demonstration using equipment supplied by CellAntenna.
“Operation of such ‘jamming technology’ is flatly illegal under Section 333 of the Communications Act, and the commission lacks the statutory to authorize violations of this congressional directive protecting the rights of authorized users of the wireless spectrum,” stated CTIA in a petition filed at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. “Moreover, the decision to authorize the demonstration — made without notice to the public or affected parties, without opportunity for comment, without consideration of any evidence regarding the potential consequences to legitimate transmission of operating the contemplated technology, and with no exigent public-safety need — is the very essence of arbitrary and capricious decision-making.”
CTIA went to court after failing to get regulatory relief from the FCC.
“While we believe that prisoners should not have access to wireless phones while incarcerated, there are other, non-interfering and legal ways to find and take the phones out of their hands,” said Christopher Guttman-McCabe, VP of regulatory Affairs at CTIA. “There are several companies that provide wireless detection systems that can be used by jails to identify and confiscate phones, and that do not interfere with wireless communications. As the FCC previously acknowledged, Congress has been clear in prohibiting the use of jammers in state prisons.”
The FCC has worked closely with public safety on a range of issues under outgoing FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. “We have received the CTIA petitions and are reviewing them,” said FCC spokesman Robert Kenny.
D.C. Department of Corrections Director Devon Brown requested permission for the jamming demonstration in a Dec. 16 letter to Martin. Brown said the proliferation of contraband cellphones has become a major security risk within corrections facilities around the country and that handsets are being used by prisoners to intimidate witnesses, coordinate escapes and conduct criminal enterprises.
In a Jan. 2 letter to Brown, FCC Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Deputy Chief Joel Taubenblatt said the agency agreed that a narrowly tailored demonstration would “limit impact on authorized wireless operations, while maximizing public-safety benefits.” The agency limited the demonstration to 30 minutes.
CellAntenna, based in Coral Springs, Fla., and a supplier of wireless jamming and repeater gear, was to have had its equipment used at a Dec. 18 jamming demonstration at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice before the event was cancelled due to controversy, even though the scheduled event had support of Texas Gov. Rick Perry and other state officials.
“I am shocked that the Department of the Criminal Justice of the State of Texas is canceling the cellphone jamming demonstration at the last minute,” said Howard Melamed, President and CEO of CellAntenna said at the time. “I have never heard of Texans ever backing down before from threats and outside pressure. I can only think that perhaps outside pressure, perhaps from CTIA, was put upon Texas’ authorities as we saw when we held a similar demonstration in South Carolina.”
January 8, 2009 05:59 am
Jamming isn't the answer. If this proliferates, then we will find jammers deployed for home-invasion acts. Ready to not be able to call 911 after your landline is cut by the home invaders?As far as the prisons are concerned, spend the cash to deploy microcells for the prison, and have all calls hand into the microcell and not be able to hand out. Define the boundary around the facility where cellphones will hand into the microcell, and post signage. Get the statutory right to be able to monitor ALL traffic on the microcell (use of the microcell = consent to be monitored). Then let them have the cellphones! How many will be stupid enough to make a cellphone call if they KNOW that they are being monitored right out of the box?Apply technology to the problem correctly, rather than throwing a jammer at the problem.Looking further at this, we should conclude two things:1. Jamming technology is now so cheap that anyone putting together a legitimate radio system had better plan on it being an antijam system from the start. The old noise-limited, fixed-frequency days are coming to an end, or are already over.2. Once we accept this idea, then we can consider making spectrum usage more opportunistic. Cuts down on a lot of coordination, and raises the probability of success for every system we deploy.
January 7, 2009 06:15 pm
Prisoner rights,Correctional Officers not doing their jobs!!!!!!! Well for those who have never worked in a penal institution,I think you should not talk what you don't know. I think that the bigger problem is the people not wanting the prison system to do their job,seems the inmate population has more rights than the average person on the street.Cell phones are getting smaller and smaller,give the system and the officers the resources and equipment they need to do their jobs and find and/or detect those SMALL cell phones.SHERIFF.JOE ARPAIO(AZ) should head all Penal Institutions,he uses his head in thinking of the citizen and military personel of this great country.Our young men and women,husbands and wives,are they fighting and dying for an inmates' right to have an ILLEGAL cell phone behind bars? I would hate to think that my friends and family members are losing their lives for such a right.What about our rights as law abiding citizens to be protected,that's what prison walls are for,RIGHT,to protected us from the criminals.With the technology this country has,there is someway to render a cell phone inside a prison facility useless.I think the people that CRY the most about rights' violations are the ones doing the most ILLEGAL things!We as citizens have the right to be feel protected and safe!I would not want some convict calling me in the middle of the night,threatening me or my family or whatever kind of trouble they could cause by using these ILLEGAL CELL PHONE! If you have never worked in this type of field,think of those of us who do and the risk we take everyday for your rights to feel safe and secure in your home.Those officers(some of them your family/friends)'we are considered the enemy to these inmates.Cell phones inside the prison walls also put us in dangerous or potentially situations,to be followed,harmed or even KILLED!. So when some of you complain of rights........................................ THINK ABOUT US!!!!!!!!
January 7, 2009 06:15 pm
Although prisons may want the jamming, REAL public safety, FIRE, EMS, and Law Enforcement realize the threat that this jamming poses, and are NOT wanting it.Perhaps if prisons would do their job, this would not be an issue?
January 7, 2009 02:08 pm
My company offers cell phone detecting devices that can sound an alarm when it detects a cellular device that is transmitting or receiving. It has been proven to be the perfect solution for courtrooms, hospitals, schools ect and would work great in the prisons as an alternative to jamming. Anyone interested in this device can contact me at ats@mchsi.com.
January 7, 2009 02:08 pm
A really bad idea!There is no practical way to keep the interference from spilling out. If there was, one could just shield the prison and keep the inmate's illicit RF in!Many prisons and lockups are right in the middle of business districts. Think of the pandemonium if jamming signals passed through a common wall (they would!) and disrupted innocent users in an adjacent plaza. What happens to the multitude of police officers, fire rescue, and other public safety personnel who woulf be in the vicinity of a lockup, but who can't use their phones for important public work?These jammers have crappy out of channel filtering, so how about the collateral damage to non-cell users on adjacent frequencies.Being in the interference control business for carriers, where incidental sources cause enough havoc, I can't emphasize enough what a terrible idea this is!
January 7, 2009 02:08 pm
I think the CTIA is right to aggressively fight against this. I think the slippery slope argument holds water here. One or two prisons, not much of an issue, 2,000-3,000 prisons, more problems. Once one "industry" uses this technology, others will want it as well. The security banner knows no bounds.As was pointed out, RF is notoriously difficult to control. Soon, we at the carriers will be in a neverending cycle of searching for interference to our legitimate users.While jammers can be made on a home electronics bench, a proliferation of used quality jammers on craigslist is in no one's interest including police, fire, rescue, and corrections.
January 7, 2009 02:08 pm
CTIA is amazing on this issue! They claim to be public spirited and promoting public safety but are stonewalling on a 30 minute demonstration. Yes, if you are not careful you can impact legitimate cell phone users outside the prison. But why can't CTIA be willing to sit down with responsible public safety personnel to come up with a reasonable technical framework that blocks access by incarcerated persons will not impacting outside users.CTIA should send their technical team to negotiate with the prison officials, not send their lawyers to court to stonewall.
January 7, 2009 02:08 pm
It seems to me that the fact that these prisoners are gaining access to mobile phones is a far bigger issue. Basically D.C. Department of Corrections Director Brown is saying that they have no control over inmates and their activities. This goes way beyond an inmate receiving a filing tool baked into a cake. I'm not saying that jamming is the right answer, but when I read this, I'm seeing that the corrections facilities are less interested in controlling the contraband than they are for handing off the responsibility to a third party. This country is way too lax when it comes to the (privacy) rights of the incarcerated.
January 7, 2009 02:08 pm
Why would an inmate be allowed to have a cell phone in the first place? I will guarantee you the finest lawman in the country, Sherriff Joe's inmates do not have cell phones.
January 7, 2009 02:08 pm
I think the other part of this is they are not making the calls over the monitored and billed prison phone system. Prison phone systems, and the service is very lucrative. All calls are made collect (in Ohio anyway) and run about $2 a minute.In addition, the service providers of the 'James Bond' monitoring systems that will flag calls for review based on key words (yeah, that is real stuff) is also a specialized and lucrative market. There is alot of money at stake here to force the issue.Safety of course plays a part for the prison, but there are other major players too that what them using the prison phone system.An obvious answer would be for the cell providers to code software into the sites around prisons that would take signal readins from multiple sites and recognize calls coming from the prison and then specifically monitor them or push them into the prison phone system, specifically ones where the calls where both phones in the call were in that area indicating someone calling from inside to outside the prison. Again, this type service would be rather lucrative for the carriers and could put a stop to these call blocking schemes.