State Correctional Systems Unite,
Ask To Jam Cell Phone Signals

[From SCDC press release today]
Twenty-five other states, the Philadelphia Prison System and D.C. Department of Corrections have signed a S.C. Department of Corrections’ petition that asks the Federal Communications Commission for permission to jam cell phone signals in prisons. [UPDATE: with the addition of Texas, now 26 states.]

The petition was drafted with assistance from Michael Marcus, former associate chief for technology at the FCC, and was submitted today. It explains in technical terms how jamming can be carried out in prisons without interfering with any cell phone signals off of prison property.

The S.C. Department of Corrections hosted a successful demonstration of cell phone jamming technology in November, where members of the media and corrections professionals from around the country saw that surgical jamming technology works: phones inside a prison facility were rendered useless with no interference to phones outside of the facility or to law enforcement radios.

Unfortunately, FCC regulators refused to attend and have yet to even respond to the agency’s request to continue using it.

Jamming cell phone signals is outlawed by present FCC Rules. Already federal law enforcement agencies are exempt from the act’s prohibition.

Prisons, jails and detention centers need the same latitude. Incarcerated convicts are using smuggled cell phones to threaten and kill witnesses, deal drugs and continue other criminal enterprises from behind bars. While cell phone detection devices and search dogs are helpful, they are more expensive and less effective than jamming, they require too much manpower, and cover too little ground to effectively stop inmates in large prisons from using cell phones.

Critics of cell phone jamming in the wireless industry have said they want to work with prison officials to solve the problem. This petition addresses the industry’s concerns with signal interference outside prisons and includes mechanisms to measure and prevent signal disruption.

“Prison systems from every corner of this country, from Georgia to New York to California to South Dakota, have signed this petition,” S.C. Corrections Director Jon Ozmint said. “These are the people who understand prison best and who realize just how dangerous it is for an inmate to possess a cell phone. We hope that the FCC will take appropriate action to allow prisons to jam cell phones. But, if not we expect that Congress will eventually take such action. We only hope that they will do so before more innocent lives are lost.”

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The petition includes the following proposals to prevent "unintended consequences" that would impact other users:

• Jamming should be subject to a license with strict eligibility requirements which require approval of a coordinator who verifies eligibility, coordinates with nearby CMRS licensees, and reviews the technical details of the proposed installation.

• Jamming must result in no harmful interference on any CMRS users outside the property of correctional facilities. Thus, there will be no impact on E-9-1-1 systems.

• Jamming must result in no harmful interference on any legal non-CMRS spectrum user anywhere - licensed or unlicensed.

• Strict technical standards and equipment authorization procedures should be implemented for all jamming equipment.

• The sale of jamming equipment must be strictly controlled and limited to state and local governments with direct shipment of equipment from the manufacturer/importer to the FCC licensed correctional facility where it is to be used.

• Equipment must be permanently labeled with a warning of criminal penalties if used without a license and a requirement to return to manufacturer/importer for destruction.

• Eligibility requirements should be strict and preclude any "slippery slope" expansion. The cornerstone of Petitioners' proposed eligibility requirement is that the licensee must show that possession and use of cell phones within the area covered by jamming is illegal under state and/or local law. This distinction clearly differentiates correctional facilities from other locations where owners and managers might wish to block CMRS communications for various reasons.

Press coverage:
SC The State
AP
Wireless Week
Wired

Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation hearing 7/15/09
(Includes video of hearing)

SpectrumTalk Update

CTIA's preferred solution to contraband cellphones
in prisons (below)

CTIA: Get Real/
FCC: Get Off the Fence
Jammer Petition Has Little to do with Reality/
FCC is Abdicating Leadership on Prison Jamming Issue

Newer Update from Time magazine 11/26/08

"Speaking to TIME from Panama, where he was on a sales trip to Latin American prisons, Melamed said CellAntenna is selling jamming technology worldwide, sometimes with the help of promotional trips arranged by the U.S. Department of Commerce. He calls it ironic that one branch of the Federal Government is promoting jamming while another is blocking it. Across the globe, more and more countries are buying jamming equipment. Britain has embarked on a major study to address the issue."

WJBF-TV Video coverage of controversy

Other news articles on prison jamming
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Today's USA Today has a cover page article on this problem that won't go away even as FCC tries to ignore it:

Smuggled Cellphones Flourish in Prisons

By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY

Thousands of illegal cellphones are being smuggled into prisons, where inmates, including some on death row, use them to threaten victims, conduct drug deals, plot escape and seek legal help, prison officials say.

The phones, most operating on prepaid accounts bought by relatives and friends, often are not caught in searches at visitor entries.

"States are struggling with this," says Eric Schultz, spokesman for the American Correctional Association.

In South Carolina, more than 1,000 phones were confiscated last year, corrections spokesman Josh Gelinas says. In McCormick, S.C., smugglers have used a makeshift launcher to shoot phones and drugs over 12-foot prison fences for inmates to pick up.

Other states reporting problems:

•Florida: Officials seized 336 phones last year, many from violent inmates. Some prisoners used the phones to harass their victims, make drug deals and plan escape, prisons spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger says.

A state law that took effect last month makes inmate phone possession a felony. Next month, the state will assign a Belgian Malinois to roam the prisons and sniff out the phones.

•Texas: More than 700 cellphones have been seized so far this year, up from 580 last year. "We're picking up new cases every day," says John Moriarty, the prison system's inspector general. In one 30-day period, officials traced 2,800 calls and text messages to death row inmate Richard Tabler, who called a state senator about his appeal. Texas is bringing in three phone-detection dogs.

•California: Cellphone seizures in 2008 have topped the 1,400 confiscated in 2007, state prisons spokesman Paul Verke says. An advisory group of state prison wardens is studying the problem.

Some states' prison officials say federal law may actually help inmates by prohibiting the jamming gear that blocks calls. South Carolina authorities planned to test that law Friday by hosting a jamming-technology demo.

Federal Communications Commission spokesman Robert Kenny would not say whether the agency would act against South Carolina authorities. (Emphasis added)

Despite what US Today says, Federal law does not prohibit prison cell phone jamming. Present FCC Rules imply that it would be illegal. However, FCC could address this by either a policy statement or an explicit rules authorizing prison cell phone jamming. As the original post, below said, such an FCC rule could use the technical provisions that NTIA has adopted to protect GPS from GPS amplifiers (that allow normal GPS receivers to work indoors) to protect cell phones outside of prisons. Such safeguards would probably prevent cell phone jamming in urban jails with no buffer around the building, but would allow it in most correctional facilities. Nonincarcerated cellphone customers would not be affected under such reasonable safeguards.

[Original post below]

On 11/2/07 CTIA filed a petition with FCC asking for a declaratory petition to ban all cell phone jammers. (FCC has no jurisdiction over federal agency spectrum use so federal agencies would not be affected by such a ruling.) Wisely, FCC has never taken any action on this petition - not even asking for public comment. While addressing the jammer issue, CTIA gratuitously asks FCC to also ban users' amplifiers that extend the range of their often underbuilt systems as shown below from a previous post. While some amplifiers approved by FCC have a tendency of self oscillation that poses an interference risk, other amplifiers - such as those built by my client Wilson Electronics - have builtin protection. The protected phones gives users a larger service area. So why is this bad?

A contraband prison cellphone

A recent CNN item reports how cell phones in prison continue to be a real security threat. The photo above shows a smuggled cell phone. Prison jammers would enhance public safety. While they may not be practical in urban jails with adjacent buildings, they could be a real security boost for prisons with some land around them.

CTIA, wake up and support the use of jammers in prisons under reasonable conditions, such as conditions analogous to the rules NTIA has for GPS repeaters in Section 8.3.28 in the "NTIA Red Book":


This NTIA rule limits stength outside the building that is intended to be covered by the GPS repeater to that receivers outside the building aren't affected. A parallel FCC rule could allow cell phone jamming in prisons and yet protect cell phones outside the prison. CTIA, doesn't safety to the public and prison staff deserve this limited use of cell phone jamming?


On November 12, 2008 CTIA showed its lack of interest in public safety by writing to FCC to oppose a one day test of cell phone jamming at a South Carolina prison. CTIA suggests that the problem can be solved with "sniffer dogs" and scanners, but offered no resources to prove their hypothesis. Perhaps the CTIA staff would like to do a field test in a correctional facility to test out their ideas?