Early Comments Disagree About FCC Proposal to Allow Prisons to Jam Phones
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department voiced concerns in comments filed this week in docket 13-111 about the FCC’s proposal to allow signal jammers in correction facilities. Other law enforcement interests supported the use of jammers. FCC commissioners approved 3-0 in September a Further NPRM seeking comment on whether correctional facilities should be allowed to jam cell signals, with an eye on curbing contraband phones (see 2509300063).
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Initial comments in the proceeding are due Friday. Carriers and wireless associations have yet to file comments.
The Las Vegas department noted that it runs the largest jail in Nevada with a daily population of approximately 2,800 inmates. “In urban areas there are concerns about the jamming signal bleeding to unintended areas,” the department said. “Control of these devices will take a considerable amount of technical expertise and cost to ensure that they are being utilized in accordance with law and as designed.” The department noted that its largest jail is adjacent to Fremont Street, “one of the most visited tourist sites in Las Vegas," and across from court buildings and city hall and “next to a large casino/resort and several other local government and legal offices.”
The Alarm Industry Communications Committee also raised concerns. Nonfederal operation of RF jamming equipment, “whether by state or local correctional authorities or private entities, creates the possibility of harmful interference to legitimate and important communications,” the alarm industry association said. “By their very nature, jammers are indiscriminate: they cannot distinguish contraband devices from lawful, life-saving communications, including alarm signaling and monitoring transmissions, emergency calls to 9-1-1, and communications used by first responders and nearby communities.”
The proposal to allow jamming got strong support from the South Carolina Department of Corrections. The department said that while it uses contraband interdiction systems, the method preferred by the wireless industry, sometimes jamming would be “the most effective tool against contraband phones.” The department said it agreed with language in the FNPRM that contraband devices “threaten the safety of prison officials and employees, the prison population, and members of the general public.”
The National District Attorneys Association (NDAA) said the use of contraband phones in state and federal correctional facilities “has been a consistent and serious issue with real safety concerns.” Prisoners with access to cellphones “can coordinate criminal activities both inside and outside the facility with little to no hindrance in communications,” NDDA said. “This can result in the continuation of illicit activities … which may include drug trafficking, organized crime, and violent assaults.” Inmates can use contraband phones to intimidate, threaten, or extort “victims, witnesses or even prison staff from behind bars.”
NDDA noted that in February, 38 people, several of whom were already in prison, were sentenced for taking part “in an international drug trafficking operation originating in Mexico that spanned across the state of Georgia.”
Vortezon, a sensor company, supported the FCC’s proposal in the FNPRM to “deauthorize” the lawful use of contraband phones within prisons. “Vortezon agrees that it is a key change, without which jamming by nonfederal corrections officials would violate section 333 of the [Communications] Act and defeat the purpose of the Commission’s stated goal,” the company said. Vortezon also agreed with the FNPRM that the FCC authority “to propose this approach” under Section 303 of the act, “which provides the Commission with expansive powers and duties to make rules governing wireless operations.”