Slow Spread of Cell Signal Jamming Technology
“Chances are, you wouldn’t even notice it was there,” said Howard Melamed, an executive with CellAntenna Corp., a small Coral Springs, Fla., company that produces jamming equipment. If someone in the crowd was on a call, they might have confused the jamming with a dropped signal. “Your phone may go off network,” he said. In other cases, “it may never signal, if it’s a quick interruption.”
- Local Police Want Right to Jam Wireless Signals
by Spencer S. Hsu, Washington Post
According to Hsu’s article, local police forces have begun to request access to radio frequency jamming technology which interferes with cellular phones.
There will likely be setbacks in the police forces’ pursuit of this request, however, if private citizens are able to acquire cell phone jammers (despite FCC regulations which explicitly prohibit the creation of interference), it is only a matter of time before police have the ability to jam private citizens’ phones in response to …
- Terrorism (sic)
- Hostage situations
- Riots
- ________
Should police be given the ability to squelch private monitored communications at their convenience?
Should anyone?
I see a great deal of potential for the abuse of this technology across the board.
If criminals use it against you, who can you call for help? If police use it against you, who will believe you?
