Textio

[techdirt] 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.

Feds Look At Jamming Mobile Phones In Prison