[Infowarrior] - Maryland pursues cell-phone jamming test

[Richard Forno]

The Washington Times
Monday, May 11, 2009
Maryland pursues cell-phone jamming test

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/11/state-pursues-cell-phone-jamming-test/print/

Brian Witte ASSOCIATED PRESS

ANNAPOLIS -- Gov. Martin O'Malley plans to ask federal regulators to  
allow Maryland to hold a cell-phone jamming demonstration at a state  
prison to show the effectiveness of stopping inmate cell-phone use,  
which has been a safety threat in prisons around the nation.

The Federal Communications Commission can give federal agencies  
permission to jam cell-phone signals, but the Communications Act of  
1934 doesn't allow state and local agencies to use the technology,  
which prevents cell-tower transmissions from reaching the targeted  
phone.

"Current attempts to ensure that cell phones stay out of prisons can  
easily be foiled and must be supplanted by the best technology  
available," Mr. O'Malley wrote in a letter to Sen. Barbara A.  
Mikulski, Maryland Democrat, who is co-sponsoring legislation in  
Congress to legalize cell-phone jamming at state and local prisons.

The Democratic governor wrote the letter to Maryland's senior senator  
to indicate his intent to request a demonstration and to update Miss  
Mikulski on the state's efforts to clear prisons of illegal cell phones.

"I am committed to seizing the opportunity that this legislative  
initiative has created to move law enforcement and the enhancement of  
public safety to the 21st century as cell phones become smaller and  
more difficult to find," Mr. O'Malley wrote.

South Carolina ran a demonstration in Nov. 2008 without federal  
permission, while Texas planned one, then called it off because of the  
federal restriction. The FCC has denied two recent requests from the  
District of Columbia and Louisiana for test jamming sessions.

Rick Abbruzzese, an O'Malley spokesman, said the time is right for the  
FCC to consider Maryland's request because Congress is taking up the  
issue and that there's a need for up-to-date data on how the  
technology can be used to prevent prisoners from using cell phones.

Inmates use cell phones to get around security, further gang activity  
and conduct criminal activity from behind bars, authorities say.

Last week, a Baltimore drug dealer who used a cell phone in the city  
jail to plan the killing of a trial witness was sentenced to life  
without parole. Patrick A. Byers Jr. was convicted of murdering Carl  
S. Lackl Jr., who had identified Byers as the gunman in a previous  
killing. Mr. Lackl, a 38-year-old single father, was fatally wounded  
in a drive-by shooting outside his home in July 2007, a week before  
Byers was scheduled for trial.

Maryland corrections officials confiscated 947 cell phones in 2008 by  
using specially trained dogs and other security measures. That's a 71  
percent increase in confiscations compared with 2006, according to the  
O'Malley administration.

Mr. O'Malley said the confiscations helped reduce serious assaults by  
inmates on staff by taking away a tool that inmates can use to  
coordinate attacks - resulting in a 32 percent drop from 2006 to 2008.  
Mr. O'Malley wrote that serious weapon assaults are down 75 percent  
over the same period.

"But while we have made progress, we can do much more to improve  
public safety and eradicate the harm caused by these cell phones by  
shutting them down," Mr. O'Malley wrote in the May 7 letter to Miss  
Mikulski.

Mr. Abbruzzese said state officials are working on the details of a  
demonstration, and it's not known where or when it would occur.

Chris Guttman-McCabe, vice president of regulator affairs at CTIA -  
The Wireless Association, the industry's leading trade group, said he  
has concerns about cell-phone jamming affecting customers who live  
near prisons.

"While we don't want prisoners to have service inside the jails, we  
also don't want our customers to be impacted outside the jails," Mr.  
Guttman-McCabe said.

Examples of inmates using cell phones to further criminal activity  
have cropped up nationwide.

In Texas earlier this month, a death-row inmate and two relatives were  
indicted in a purported cell-phone smuggling case that led to a  
statewide prison lockdown. A grand jury also indicted Richard Lee  
Tabler on a felony retaliation charge for threatening to kill a state  
senator.

In Kansas, convicted killer John Manard planned his 2006 prison escape  
using a cell phone smuggled in by an accomplice. The following year,  
two inmates escaped another Kansas prison with the help of a former  
guard and a smuggled cell phone.