Should mobile phone jammers be legal?

[Lagmonster]

I read a piece not long ago about the 'vigilantes' in the US, and other places, who have taken to importing (mostly from England and India, where they are...I think...legal to own) so-called 'portable cell jammers', with the intention of creating quiet zones where people can't get a signal (or otherwise block people from using cell phones at certain times or places).

In...most of the world, actually, these things are illegal to own or use, for a profound range of reasons. My question is: Does anyone think they *should* be legal (and in what context)? Failing that, are the arguments against legality of the devices strong?

I'm ambivalent on the subject. On one hand, I don't think a person should be allowed to carry a pocket-sized model onto, say, a public bus, that knocks out all phones in a ten-metre radius, because fuck the guy who thinks everyone should follow his rules of behaviour in public. On the other hands, I think business owners (like theaters, restaurants, etc.) should be allowed to enforce 'no cell phone' policies via the use of localized jammers. Ditto for people who want to install them in their homes, provided it doesn't interfere with the 'airspace' of neighbours or public spaces nearby.

But I'd love to hear reasoned arguments for or against.

[cosmicalstorm]

This issue was a lot more relevant ten years ago when people mainly used cells to talk. Cellphones are in the middle of going from being phones to becoming personal digital assistants with the need to be continuously connected to the internet. This process is still far from complete but moving forward in time this situation will make it problematic to block access. Blocking access may be seen as a criminal act.

[Borgholio]

First thought that comes to mind is safety. Suppose you witness a crime, accident, medical emergency, or disaster but can't call for help because of a jammer. Or suppose a criminal brings a jammer with him to prevent people from calling the cops. I don't think it's a good idea. I would prefer social engineering to change people's habits regarding mobile devices. Less chance of death.

[Elheru Aran]

Not to mention that there are some people in certain professions who are required by their work to have phone service continuously available to them, notably medical professionals who are 'on duty' outside of their actual workplace-- doctors, nurses, etc. You could also extend this to police officers, soldiers, fire-fighters... Being in an area with a jammer would break that service and cause liability issues.

That said, I have less issue with purchasing a jammer for personal use at home or in certain specific environments. There are issues with directly confiscating property such as cell phones even if only temporarily, right? In settings where cell phone use is distracting at best and disruptive at worst, such as schools, you could make a decent argument for the use of these jamming devices. Perhaps have them set up to cover classrooms, but have open areas where kids can go in between classes or during breaks to text or call. There should be some way for emergency purposes that the jammer can be shut off in order to call for help-- perhaps some control built into the teacher's desk or a key fob of some kind.

It is a pretty safe argument, I think, that students have no business playing or calling or texting on their cell phones during class periods, unless these phones are so comprehensive that they fulfill the functions of a personal computer. I'm aware that time is coming, but until then, schools should have sufficient resources for the students to study without them having to resort to their phones.

[Batman]

I'm not sure those devices should be inherently illegal, as long as everybody affected by it agrees to this. I take 'stepping into a classroom/theatre/restaurant you know to be jammed' as agreement. You shutting down cellphones around you on the bus because you don't like to listen to people chatting-yeah, no.
One of the problems, as pointed out, is doctors, who sort of need to be available at all times, even when in one of those locations, so you'd either need to build an exception into this to let emergency calls through or set up another communication system not affected by the jammers.

[Borgholio]

or set up another communication system not affected by the jammers.

Bat Signal?

[Welf]

When it comes to talking with the cellphone in public I have to think of this comic:

[Napoleon the Clown]

Even when someone isn't on-call for their profession it can be good for them to have access to their cell phone. Movie theater, parents are on a date... And something happens with their kids that the baby sitter has to call them for. Or the hospital, if one of the kids has had to go there. The theater isn't gonna know which movie the parents are watching, so calling the theater itself wouldn't be that great. Instead, someone calls the parents and says "This is going on, please come to this hospital." Or other sorts of situations. Hell, the baby sitter could have a personal emergency and need to get the parents to come home so the personal emergency can be taken care of. There are all kinds of reasons someone may need to have their cell phone in a theater.

I remember last time this topic came up there was a back and forth about whether or not people who are on-call should be able to have a personal life. Not in those exact words, but something like "Doctors are payed really well, they should be willing to make sacrifices."

Not gonna lie, it'd be nice to be able to kill someone's cell phone conversation if they're causing problems. But you can't know how it will affect people who may have a legitimate reason to be on their phone beyond just wanting to yammer on about stupid bullshit. Jackass fucking around on their cell phone when they shouldn't is annoying, but it's not like they're likely to get you killed from it. If they're driving a car, that's a different matter, of course. But some dickwad blabbing on his phone during the movie? Stopping him isn't worth the risk of someone needing to use a cell phone and not being able to because you just don't want someone to be annoying.

If you're in a movie, put your phone on silent and the problem is solved, so long as you're smart enough to just leave it in your pocket or wherever. A call comes in and you think it might be important? Go out into the lobby to take care of it. People will hate you a lot less if you leave the theater to deal with your call. If it's stupid bullshit you can say "I'm at the movies, I'll call you back." If it's important you can deal with it without ruining someone's enjoyment of the movie. Same concept for text messages. Theaters kicking out people who are dicks about phone use would certainly be better than blocking cell phone signals entirely.

In a classroom there can be a valid reason to use a cell phone. Emergency situations being notable ones. Kids are gonna find ways to fuck around and just generally be pests regardless of if they have a phone on them or not. One easy solution to getting students to not fuck around on their phone as much is parents disabling texting on the kid's phone and not getting them one that has mobile internet. Bam, most of the problem for student phone use is gone. Then again, that requires parenting and we all know how much you can rely on that happening.

[Batman]

I'm not sure how me showing up at the GCPD is going to help when what you really need is a neurosurgeon at the 'Random Batmanverse Character That Died Except Not for Keeps Memorial Clinic'.

And at least given the exiting cellphone communications infrastructure (at least as I understand it) there's no way to weed out emergency calls that have to go through as lives are at stake from the 'Have you seen that youtube video? SO awsome' that makes up if not the vast majority then at least a large percentage of cellphone conversations, so we'd essentially have to establish a separate '911' cellphone network for emergency calls.

[aerius]

You know what we had in the old days when people didn't have cell phones? A pager. Which was invented for doctors and other professionals who had to be on call. They ping you, then you go find a phone and call the number back. It's simple, easy, and no one is disturbed by you yakking away on a fucking phone.

I'm in favour of legal cell phone jamming for any business, school, or private residence. But what if someone with a gun holds the school hostage and no one can call 911? Yeah, well, what if someone with a gun flips out in a movie theatre because someone was texting on a cell phone? Don't tell me it doesn't happen, cause it did. And other than a freak occurrence like the former, there's no good reason to be in constant contact with the outside world via a cell phone. Everything else can be taken care of with a pager.

Jam the cell phone frequencies, leave the pager band open. If someone needs to get in touch with you they can page you and you can step outside and do your talking where you not pissing off other people. And if you need to call someone, step outside and do your thing.

[mr friendly guy]

A few thoughts.

1. If I am on call, I don't visit places where I am required to turn my mobile off, like a theatre for example. So while I think its not unreasonable to have a mobile phone jammer in the cinema, it most probably isn't relevant to a medical professional.

2. I am pretty sure pagers have limited range. So if you are on call and outside the hospital in a place where your mobile is jammed, its a good bet your pager won't be working either.
Edit - which is why the hospital switchboard calls my mobile.

[Sea Skimmer]

The the net area effect of allowing unlimited jamming devices in urban areas would be massive, as in you'd end up jamming the entire network if enough people did it. This is why almost everywhere in the world bans them. These effects do not simply stop at a planned radius, they are mutually reinforcing over a span of miles.

Licensed use in movie theaters would work out, except this is just to facilitate movie theaters being ass lazy about how they operate, and the mere presence of a bright screen in a dark theater is enough to rightfully annoy people anyway. Jails are the only place that have a real case to make for allowing them because they are already doing everything they can to prevent cell use, and have a large public safety issue at stake.

Anyone who thinks this is a good idea might want to take a good look at just how much of the radio spectrum you have to cover to make it work. The only reason the cell networks are able to function at all are because they now use such precise waveform controls.

[Simon_Jester]

I think schools have a case for it.

In a classroom there can be a valid reason to use a cell phone. Emergency situations being notable ones.

My classroom has a landline; in case of emergency people can damn well use that. Landline phones still exist, remember, and will work just fine through jamming that makes cell phones useless.

Kids are gonna find ways to fuck around and just generally be pests regardless of if they have a phone on them or not.

The cell phone creates a whole different order of problem from most of the usual kiddie methods of fucking around. It has the following problems that most 'normal' child behavior issues don't.

1) It is silent, which means that it can allow students to 'tune in and drop out' for long periods, unless the teacher specifically monitors the classroom for cell phone use (distracting them from, y'know, teaching).

2) The cell phone gratifies a child's social impulses even while texting or IMing. They can get the pleasure of talking to friends, without creating a distraction that annoys their classmates. That increases the addictiveness of it, and makes the children more likely to reflexively fish out their phones all over again five minutes after having been told to put it away, like a heavy smoker taking cigarette breaks every hour on the hour.

3) The cell phone is not only a toy the child can use to distract themselves, it is an active source of distraction if anyone else contacts [/i]them[/i]. Thus, even a kid who seriously intends to pay attention in class may go "oh wait my cousin is texting me" and respond to that, without thinking about the effect of this behavior on their education.

4) The cell phone is expensive, which means rebellious teenagers see it as a precious personal possession, which makes confiscating the damn things like pulling teeth. So a school policy to make kids turn off the phones can just fail in some cases, because any attempt to enforce consequences results in the child seizing onto the phone and what the hell is the teacher supposed to do, hit him/her over the head with a rock and take the phone away? It's a lot easier to confiscate a bag of potato chips.

One easy solution to getting students to not fuck around on their phone as much is parents disabling texting on the kid's phone and not getting them one that has mobile internet. Bam, most of the problem for student phone use is gone. Then again, that requires parenting and we all know how much you can rely on that happening.

YES. Also, it effectively outsources the school's ability to maintain control over the learning environment. This is a bad thing, because idiot parents will fail to make the right decision, or any decision, on the issue. Or will bow to the kids' incessant whining that they can't IM people from the bus. As a result, while SOME of the kids don't have phones, the other 50% still do, including the ones who are most irresponsibly parented AND the ones who are best at whining to get what they want.

Which means, for practical purposes, you might as well not have bothered to do anything.

[Napoleon the Clown]

All valid points, I'll admit. I've never seen a landline in a class room, though. Dunno if it's because I live in Utah and Utah doesn't like funding education properly or if you were in unique circumstances. Adding one could be a good idea, if you have localized dead zones in the class room.

[Elheru Aran]

Landlines are ridiculously simple to set up; just run a few wires and you're good. Could lay it at the same time as you lay the Internet cables, and depending on the school district they might still be using landline connections to hook up (my wireless is hooked to a landline jack).

I see absolutely no reason to not have a landline in each classroom for teacher's use or emergencies. Jamming cell phones in school is a bit more of a mixed bag but it's a lot more legit than making the kids give up their phones at the door, which is pretty much the only other thing to do if you really want to keep them from using them in school. Some schools have given up outright; one that my wife subbed at not too long ago straight up allowed the kids to play around on their phones once they finished their work in class.

The biggest issue is local radio frequency jamming, though, as Skimmer points out. This could potentially create problems in emergency situations. Simple solution: have shutdown buttons installed in administration offices. In some school districts there are probably emergency alarm buttons for the same situation anyway. Alternatively, provide emergency services and police with a way to shut it off remotely.

The more I think about it the more it makes sense to use these devices in at least primary and secondary education venues. In college, you're dealing with "adults" who should know better. Kids in high and middle school, however, can be absolute berks.

[Simon_Jester]

We fantasize about having jammers at my high school. It's a really, really good idea, because middle and high school kids are, as you say, berks.

They're just... I don't know if it's a generational thing or a human-being thing, but most children in this era seem totally incapable of grasping the idea of "turn off the cell phones." There's no sense of perspective, no willingness to actually say "no, this is not my time for socializing." Social media and easy portable communications seem to have created a world where people growing up in that world have little or no concept of "time to shut down the gadgets, and tune into what's happening in my physical surroundings, not my friends over in electronic-space."

All valid points, I'll admit. I've never seen a landline in a class room, though. Dunno if it's because I live in Utah and Utah doesn't like funding education properly or if you were in unique circumstances.

In our case the phones date back to... God only knows when; they're not a new installation.

However, my basic point remains- in the presence of cell phones, school communications should simply revert to what they were in 1995 when people didn't hand cell phones to children anyway. At the time this was considered acceptable- if you need to contact the school you call the school's front office, and you do NOT call the child directly. If the school needs to contact someone else they have intercom and hopefully land lines. If all else fails, use the intercom to tell the front office to turn off the jammer because there's an emergency.

[Elheru Aran]

There really does seem to be a social trend against deliberately being technologically regressive, no matter what the setting is. I guarantee the first mention in a public setting of a district setting up a jammer in a public school would cause screams of rage from the parents themselves-- "I want to talk to my kids whenever I want to, screw your classroom discipline!"

Though it's worth wondering whether it's so much being resistant to regression as it is a general change in social attitudes regarding schools and teachers, and parenting... there's a cartoon floating around somewhere (I'm sure you've seen the one) which shows first parents with the teacher yelling at the kid back in the 50s or something, then the next panel is the parents with the kid yelling at the teacher 'now'. This is unfortunately becoming far more the norm than I would really like...

[Borgholio]

if you need to contact the school you call the school's front office, and you do NOT call the child directly.

That's how they did it in my day. We didn't have intercoms in the rooms and only places like the auto shop had direct landlines. If people needed to get ahold of their children, they would call the office and send a student runner (working in the office for extra credit) with a note to the classroom. Never had any problems with that system...unless the runner was a cute cheerleader with a short skirt and then it would distract the entire class, but that's not really a bad thing.

[Tsyroc]

There really does seem to be a social trend against deliberately being technologically regressive, no matter what the setting is. I guarantee the first mention in a public setting of a district setting up a jammer in a public school would cause screams of rage from the parents themselves-- "I want to talk to my kids whenever I want to, screw your classroom discipline!"

Though it's worth wondering whether it's so much being resistant to regression as it is a general change in social attitudes regarding schools and teachers, and parenting... there's a cartoon floating around somewhere (I'm sure you've seen the one) which shows first parents with the teacher yelling at the kid back in the 50s or something, then the next panel is the parents with the kid yelling at the teacher 'now'. This is unfortunately becoming far more the norm than I would really like...

Where I work we kind of get it from the other end, where the parents insist that they need to carry their phones because their kids, the school, the baby sitter, etc... might need to get in touch with them. 10 years ago someone would have just called one of the main lines in the department and then someone would have either paged the person, forwarded the call to them, taken a message, or even sent someone to find them. If you got too many personal calls it became an issue. The same thing is in effect now but harder to police. Supposedly people are allowed to carry their phones during work but are really only supposed to be on them during their break. Which has become essentially unenforceable since most people carry work related mobile phones and quite a few people use their own personal smart phone as a pda, and in the case of the pharmacist their drug reference, dose calculator etc...

What is annoying is that some of the parents seem to micro manage their children's lives via phone.

[bilateralrope]

Can the area covered by a cellphone jammer be restricted to just the school ?

Or will it also affect houses next door to the school ?

[Simon_Jester]

There really does seem to be a social trend against deliberately being technologically regressive, no matter what the setting is. I guarantee the first mention in a public setting of a district setting up a jammer in a public school would cause screams of rage from the parents themselves-- "I want to talk to my kids whenever I want to, screw your classroom discipline!"

Yeah, well at some point I think the schools need to put their foot down and say "either shut up and let us teach your children without their phone ringing off the hook every five minutes, or teach them yourself. Your call."

Though it's worth wondering whether it's so much being resistant to regression as it is a general change in social attitudes regarding schools and teachers, and parenting... there's a cartoon floating around somewhere (I'm sure you've seen the one) which shows first parents with the teacher yelling at the kid back in the 50s or something, then the next panel is the parents with the kid yelling at the teacher 'now'. This is unfortunately becoming far more the norm than I would really like...

Yes, it is, and the trend is looking more and more to me like it's going to make public education literally impossible to do properly in the next 10-20 years if there isn't some kind of pushback or reversal of current trend.

[Borgholio]

Can the area covered by a cellphone jammer be restricted to just the school ?

Or will it also affect houses next door to the school ?

Think about your WiFi router at home or work. Does the wireless signal limit itself to your house?

[Napoleon the Clown]

All valid points, I'll admit. I've never seen a landline in a class room, though. Dunno if it's because I live in Utah and Utah doesn't like funding education properly or if you were in unique circumstances.

In our case the phones date back to... God only knows when; they're not a new installation.

However, my basic point remains- in the presence of cell phones, school communications should simply revert to what they were in 1995 when people didn't hand cell phones to children anyway. At the time this was considered acceptable- if you need to contact the school you call the school's front office, and you do NOT call the child directly. If the school needs to contact someone else they have intercom and hopefully land lines. If all else fails, use the intercom to tell the front office to turn off the jammer because there's an emergency.

Oh, I'm all in favor of the parent calling the school to get a hold of their kid. The school I first went to most definitely was built long before cell phones. The one I went to for 4-6 predated the omnipresence of cell phones. Hell, so did 7-9 and 10-12. They had started to gain traction in the years I went to high school but had yet to reach the point of people buy a cell phone for all their kids and their dogs. I don't recall if my first school had a PA system, even. Been too long. This isn't a statement on whether or not there should be a landline in the classroom, just my experience. Utah's schools get terrible funding so I wouldn't be surprised if a phone in every class is something common among the states that are willing to actually fund education.


Far as phone systems in the classroom go, that's extremely easy to do without needing to install landlines if they aren't already present. You can expect basically every classroom to have internet access in it. VOIP systems (such as Skype) can make E-911 calls. If there's an emergency situation in the classroom, bam. Use that. Now people can't piss and moan about "Where will we get the money" for adding landlines if the rooms don't have them already. Hell, a shut-off for the classroom jammer could even be present in the room where a student wouldn't be able to just dick around with it in passing but could access it if there were an emergency involving, say, the teacher. A landline would probably be the best, though. E-911 isn't going to be as rapid a response system as calling from a proper phone.

[bilateralrope]

Can the area covered by a cellphone jammer be restricted to just the school ?

Or will it also affect houses next door to the school ?

Think about your WiFi router at home or work. Does the wireless signal limit itself to your house?

Which means a cellphone jammer in a school is going to cause problems for anyone living near the school. Especially if they decided that a landline wasn't a worthwhile expense for their home.

[Elheru Aran]

Which means a cellphone jammer in a school is going to cause problems for anyone living near the school. Especially if they decided that a landline wasn't a worthwhile expense for their home.

Yeah, like I said, this is one of the biggest issues. About the only way, unless you want to put a Faraday cage or something like that around the whole building, is probably to use small units with limited range and locate them where they can cover the majority of the building without overlapping adjacent property. I noted earlier that there could be open areas where kids can use their phones-- I have no issue with them using them on breaks or between classes, it's in class that the problems lie.

Do note that in majority of (US, anyway) schools except totally inner-city (and sometimes even there), it's not like they're wall-to-wall neighbors. There's usually parking spaces around the school and athletic/play areas. It might be possible to use a decent jammer to cover the whole school and not affect the adjoining properties adversely.