Predominantly Red States Support Carr's Proposal to Jam Prison Airwaves
The attorneys general from 23 mostly Republican-dominated states this week supported a proposal by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to allow corrections officials to jam cellphone signals. Commissioners are slated to take up a Further NPRM at their meeting Tuesday (see 2509090060), and Carr has said he hopes new rules will be in place next year (see 2509050055). A week ahead of the meeting, only a few comments on the FNPRM have been posted in docket 13-111.
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The current FCC interpretation of Section 333 of the Communications Act “prohibits the use of jamming equipment, even in highly controlled environments like correctional institutions,” the state AGs noted in their letter. But “this blanket restriction fails to account for the unique security needs of these facilities,” and “inmates routinely use smuggled phones to coordinate criminal enterprises, intimidate witnesses, and orchestrate violence both inside and outside prison walls.”
The proposed rule “would empower correctional administrators to implement narrowly tailored jamming systems that disrupt unauthorized wireless communications within prison boundaries, without affecting legitimate service outside the facility,” the AGs said. “This targeted approach balances the need for security with the preservation of lawful communications.”
“This is something I and three Corrections Directors have been fighting to get passed for years,” South Carolina AG Alan Wilson (R) said Wednesday in a statement. “Federal prisons are allowed to jam cell phone signals within their walls, and it causes no problems outside, so state prisons should be allowed to do it too.”
Besides South Carolina, the states signing the letter were Arkansas, Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia.
In one of the few comments in the FCC record, NCIC Correctional Services said it has “long supported the adoption of rules permitting correctional facilities to utilize micro-jamming devices as a cost-effective means to minimize the impact of contraband cellphones in jails and prisons.” Creating “dead zones” within correctional facilities “would permit smaller jails to restrict contraband device access where it is not cost-effective to install managed access systems.”