Let’s legalize cell phone jammers. People in Berkeley have them. They are legal in France (more or less). I’m sick of these boorish jack-offs who sit in the airplane and talk at the top of their lungs about their personal business. Are these people complete fools? If they are inviting eavesdropping then let’s put up some websites where we re-iterate their conversation along with names, appointment details, who they are calling and what they said.
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In the United States, actively jamming a cell-phone signal is illegal. The FCC, which is the government agency in charge of regulating the airwaves, has established severe penalties for doing so. If you’re caught at your local restaurant with the SH066PL2A/B, it’s possible you could face an $11,000 fine and a one-year jail term. Possible, but apparently highly unlikely.
According to the FCC, cell-phone jammers should remain illegal. Since commercial enterprises have purchased the rights to the spectrum, the argument goes, jamming their signals is a kind of property theft.
off topic: cell phone as bugging device
I dislike when people receive calls on their cell phones in inappropriate places. I am an advocate for Cell Phone Jammers, devices which block cell phone frequencies and prevent cell phones from receiving calls in certain areas. This page is about the ethical convictions behind allowing such Cell Phone Jammers into the US, where they are currently illegal.
Hopefully they’ll have wifi on airplanes so that ppl can IM instead.
Legalize!
I wouldn’t be heartbroken if jammers were everywhere and prevented cellphone use in most places except for emergencies. Basically, if you’re indoors (including public transportation), and it’s not your home, I’d be happy to have jammers all over the place.
What if the government decides to blanker-jam areas, thanks to some new information control law? There’s a reason why the airwaves are public domain, because it’s a very powerful communication medium. Doesn’t anyone recall when some folks in Washington wanted to block cellphones because they could be used to detonate bombs?
No, certain comforts need to be sacrificed if you want certain liberties. Instead of curbing these problems, we should work on fixing them. Jamming signals is no solution – it just sounds like a good idea. What if I decided to jam all your incoming office calls because you’re not productive enough?
Great idea, but the potential is has is very nasty.