In Sharp Departure, Carr Proposes Allowing Prisons to Jam Contraband Phones
The FCC will take up proposed rules at its Sept. 30 meeting that would lift federal rules prohibiting correctional officials from jamming signals from contraband cellphones, Chairman Brendan Carr said Friday. Carr announced during a press conference streamed from Arkansas that commissioners would be asked to vote on an NPRM. He said he hopes new rules will be in place next year or “as early as possible.”
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When the FCC took comment on ways to curb contraband cellphones in 2021, CTIA said managed access systems are effective, but other technologies aren’t ready for widespread use (see 2109140049). In July 2021, the FCC approved a two-phase process for authorizing interdiction systems to detect contraband devices and a “rule-based process” for disabling them (see 2107130029).
Carr was joined at the press conference by Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Attorney General Tim Griffin, all Republicans. Earlier Friday, the officials toured the Varner Unit of the Arkansas Department of Corrections to see problems firsthand.
“While the FCC has authorized a range of solutions in the past, it has stopped short of allowing jamming,” Carr said. The agency has allowed different technologies to identify the devices and shut them down, but the rules haven’t been a complete success, he said. Other countries and the federal government have the ability to jam signals, but not state and local officials, he noted. Those restrictions are based on, “in my view, a misreading of federal law.”
Carr said the Communications Act bars interference with authorized communications, “and the theory had been that you can’t jam any communications.” The NPRM will propose to “deauthorize” the lawful use of contraband phones within prisons, he said, which is “well within the FCC’s authority to give that reading to federal law.”
The Communications Act states, “No person shall willfully or maliciously interfere with or cause interference to any radio communications of any station licensed or authorized by or under this chapter or operated by the United States Government.”
A CTIA spokesperson said in an email that the wireless industry “is committed to addressing the serious issue of contraband phones while fulfilling the longstanding Congressional mandate to protect legitimate communications, including vital public safety services, from interference.” The industry is working “with the FCC, federal and state policymakers, and law enforcement to advance proven solutions, such as Managed Access Systems, that block contraband devices without interfering with lawful communications.”
Jamming may not be “a silver bullet” or “the right fit for every facility,” Carr said, but there are many jails and prisons where jamming “will and can make a significant difference.” The proposed rules will be flexible and not mandate jamming, he said. Technology now allows jamming that won’t “necessarily interfere with someone who’s driving on a nearby highway or [in] a community that’s nearby.”
Cotton urged Congress to also approve the Cellphone Jamming Reform Act of 2025, which he introduced in March. Officials at the Varner facility said they had confiscated 350 contraband phones just this year, Cotton said at the press conference. “Those are being used to get weapons into prison, to get drugs into prison” and by gangs to threaten people outside prisons.
“This won’t solve every problem in the prison, but it will solve many, many of the problems,” Griffin said.
Georgia confiscated 15,000 contraband phones in a one-year period, “and we’re seeing that all across the country,” Carr said. The devices are being used to “run drug operations, to call in hits, to order kidnappings,” he added. “The time has certainly come when we need to do something.”