Feds Look At Jamming Mobile Phones In Prison
from the hope-you're-not-a-guard-during-a-riot... dept
Discussions over mobile phone jamming seems to get pretty controversial pretty fast. The technology is technically illegal in the US (except for the government), but that hasn't stopped some from using the tech anyway. Plenty of businesses have tried to get exceptions to the law. Movie theaters, in particular, have petitioned the government in the past for the right to jam mobile phones and a maker of jamming equipment has claimed that banning the technology is unconstitutional. Of course, the problem is that there may be legitimate reasons to use a mobile phone (emergencies, anyone?) and jammers don't discriminate. The collateral damage of mobile phone jamming could be a big deal.However, there's one other area that has pushed for jammers for a long time: prisons. Mobile phones have become popular contraband equipment in prison, and there are frequent stories of prisoners regularly using mobile phones to communicate with the outside world. So, now, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is apparently planning to investigate if it makes sense to jam mobile phones in prison. I'm not sure why this isn't coming from the FCC, though it sounds like a bit of a political football, where a bill that would grant the FCC that power stalled out in Congress. I can understand the desire to block mobile phone usage in prisons, but jamming seems like a sledge hammer type of solution, that could cause problems for others (guards?) who might need mobile phones to work.
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Filed Under: jamming, mobile phones, prison
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Root Problem
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Re: Root Problem
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However, my founding thought is mostly false. Prisoners are not completely removed from society. The have postal and Internet access, so they might as well have phones too.
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Prison Phones are Big Money
Prisoners with mobile phones cost the Prison Industrial Complex money.
This law will pass unnoticed because no one cares.
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Definitely one of the most idiotic comment I've ever read. It isn't even slightly illegal to search an inmate after a visit. But they still get things inside because inmates are fairly creative at hiding things, and guards are notoriously easy to bribe.
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Why are you so down on foot fetishists?
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Yeah...
I'm just surprised that they allowed this to become an issue, and didn't quietly implement it.
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The Sun.
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The real question...
Those serving time for "lesser crimes", however, have all of their privelages restored when they're released.
There are also a lot of other contraband items that aren't allowed in prison. Few, if any, however, allow them to directly contactthe outside world. To which I say: Jam the phones! They're in fucking prison, not the Hilton! The reason they're there is because they violated the law, and life is SUPPOSED to be tough! Fuck 'em!
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funny
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imagine whooping a iPAD
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Re: imagine whooping a iPAD
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OMG! what ever shall we do?! surly not use "emergency" phones that could be installed outside the door of each screen in a bright yellow box? these phones could even have a nice connection direct to 911 and 911 could even know which screen goes with which phone. So really no good reason to have a (working) phone in a movie.
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> mobile phones to work
Guards aren't allowed to have cells inside the prison, either. They have radios to communicate. No need for cell phones whatsoever.
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right
If they need a phone, I'm sure the prison offices have a land line.
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Perhaps there is a better approach.
If the prison systems were to "allow" the cellphone tower operators to put cells on each prison and allow the prisoners calls to be tapped exactly the same way as the ridiculously expensive payphones are, then there could be no excuse.
Avoiding nearby residents from being "tapped" by these towers would be quite easy, the current crop of cell antenna arrays is extremely directional and tunable.
One could even go so far as to allow local residents to have their cellphones unique ids added to a list that would disallow them from using the "prison cells" at all.
But of course the real reason is that the prison industrial complex makes a great deal of money off of the prisoners families with really unbelievably expensive call rates so this will never happen.
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Triangulate?
How about GPS - can't that tell you where the call is coming from too?
Jamming could block calls just outside the prison walls - which would not be good for anyone living nearby.
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It shouldn't be too difficult to put such hardware in place.
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This problem is not going away with signal jamming...
There are 3 ways to discourage or prevent contraband cellphone use:
cellphone sniffing dogs - expensive (up to $5k / day), not very covert and easily foiled by hiding phones among strong scents.
signal jamming - currently illegal and also does nothing to detect or locate contraband cellphones. A civil liability for prisons involving not only prisoners but local residents, guards and nearby businesses.
cellphone detection - these handheld devices can covertly detect and even locate cellphones while in use or even in standby mode. We actually found a cellphone hidden in a hollowed-out, fake brick in a wall in standby mode.
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Why not let them have them and use 21st century technology to control who they can call?
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Cell phone detection
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Cell phone detection
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http://www.freephonenumberfinder.com/new+york/area-code-347/new+york/347.368.xxxx
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