No One Should Profit From Criminals (Except Us)
from the subtle dept
The head of a company that makes cell phone jammers says mobile operators should hand over all the revenue they make from prisoners using contraband phones in jail. Apparently there is a "growing epidemic of inmates using cell phones in prisons", and the guy says that the "millions of dollars" in question should be given to jail officials to pay for more guards to search for phones. "Nobody should profit from criminals," he says -- except, of course, his company, which wants jammers to be made legal so it can sell some to prisons to combat this "growing epidemic". This is the same company that argued a few years back that the laws banning jammers are unconstitutional; at that point, it was targeting selling jammers to cops to block the use of phones as remote detonators. Maybe basing your business model on getting federal law changed isn't the wisest idea, eh guys?
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: mobile phone jammers
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
In related news...
1. The head of a group of Texas oil companies recently decried all foreign oil producing nations as, "Darn terrorists. They jist wanna keel you." This apparently also applied to Canada. The Texan went on to describe how his company in fact did NOT want to kill you, they just want to drill off of the continental shelf.
2. Jesse Jackson came out today and told a congregation that "Whitey wants to keep you down! Black Power!" When someone pointed out to him that the President of the United States, an office Mr. Jackson tried to achieve, was an African American and maybe it was time for him to just go away, he cried out, "Whitey got to you too! Black America needs me!!!"
More obvious collusion and conflicts of interest to come!!!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: In related news...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Not the worst thing I've heard
Actually I think it is a pretty good idea ... so long as the company isn't the only thing you are relying on.
If I knew how to and could rapidly make jammers. And I could find someone to fund me for a few months or a year then it would make sense to lobby for a law change because then you could immediately step in to fill the demand for this newly legalized gadget ... especially if you decided to make and sell it in some other part of the world.
However I'd recommend having a fall back career because your odds of success are rather slim
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Fail that, build your jail with passive jamming in mind, im sure there are some cheap paints that could be put on the wall with this in mind.
Jamming radio signals vs bombs is a vary BAD idea, we learned in the military that IEDs can sometimes be setup to go off when a range of radio frequencys get to close (marine picks up radio, clicks in to report IED, IED goes off), and jamming will put off a huge range of noise (or a lower power, "this frequency is in use" command.)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Re: passive jamming. This sounds like the way to go. If nothing else, they can surely create some kind of Faraday cage or its equivalent.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Another money grab
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Another money grab
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Another money grab
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Out of curiosity...
Theoretically, couldn't you just turn a prison into a giant faraday (sp?) cage? It would take a lot of material, but if the business of cell phone use in prisons is worth millions, then maybe a way to stop it should be worth it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The cell phone are pre-payed
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
"Intelligent" Location augmented with jamming
If the system were able to also build up a forensic database, then the information could be used to actually tack on a few more months/years to the inmates sentence, or some other prosecutorial approach.
I recently pitched this approach to the FCC.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
we do need cell phone jammers sometimes
Though in some countries, the product is illegal, its existence prove it is needed by some persons
[ link to this | view in chronology ]