School System Considers Jamming Students' Phones 785
An anonymous reader writes "The St. Ansgar, Iowa school system is considering buying cell-phone jamming equipment for up to $5000 if it is deemed legal. The use of the equipment would be suspended in the case of an emergency, but one has to wonder if they would be quick enough to shut it down should an emergency arise. 'A Federal Communications Commission notice issued in 2005 says the sale and use of transmitters that jam cellular or personal communications services is unlawful.'"
If it's legal? (Score:4, Informative)
I'll help them:
It isn't.
Active jamming is illegal in the US (Score:3, Informative)
First off - yes, this is very illegal which is why you don't see the use of active jamming equipment in the US. If they want to instead build a Faraday cage around the entire campus, this would be the "legal" - though prohibitively expensive - way of getting around the issue.
If in fact they attempt this, and staff or a student have a bona-fide medical emergency and are unable to summon emergency services, this district will then be tasked for paying for a home nurse to wipe the drool off of said victim's face for the rest of their lives.
You would think those who work in education would, you know, educate themselves on the relevant laws and ramifications of actions... nahhh, this is the US public school system we're talking about here.
Can't do it (Score:0, Informative)
It's a violation of FCC rules to use jamming devices. However, you can create a "faraday cage" in all the classrooms, using fine-meshed wire on windows and doors to prevent signals from getting in or out.
Re:back in my day (Score:3, Informative)
Why doesn't anyone realize that they'd be banning teachers from using cell phones as well? I know not all teachers use cell phones, but a lot do, and I doubt they'd be amused that they're suddenly unable to use a cell phone during the portion of the day when the cell phone is most useful (i.e. when they're not at home).
Re:If it's legal? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:If it's legal? (Score:5, Informative)
No idea why I'm humoring an AC who thinks that such claims are outrageous, all of these are real, and recent examples:
Is that the kind of evidence you're looking for? Are you a teacher in self-righteous denial?
Too late (Score:1, Informative)
They are backing down (Score:1, Informative)
They are backing down, it's not legal.
http://gazetteonline.com/2009/07/31/iowa-law-blocks-schools-call-for-jamming-device
Re:back in my day (Score:5, Informative)
It's the texting that's the big issue. My wife teaches middle-school math, and she is constantly interrupting her classes to tell her students to put their not-allowed-on-campus phones away.
30 years ago, it was passing notes in class. Now it's texting. 30 years from now it'll brain-melding in class or something...
Re:I might be too old... (Score:5, Informative)
My father-in-law is a Jr. High School teacher, so I can tell you some of the restraints that are on the teachers.
They are not allowed to discipline students. (I am not talking physical discipline here. Teachers are not to scold a student for bad behaviour. At most they can send them to the principle's office, which means the kids gets out of class that day.)
If a teacher gives a student a bad grade, they are often yelled at by a parent, claiming that if the teacher has it in for the child, sometimes even calling the teacher racist. (That happened to my father-in-law.)
Teachers are not allowed to confiscate knives, cell-phones, distracting toys or video games without being accused of stealing, but make sure each student pays attention.
Teachers are given conflicting instructions on teaching. (leave no child behind, but teach to the highest level. Don't teach just so they pass tests, but you need to cram 1.5 years of test stuff plus the stuff beyond the tests into 9 months.)
Oh, and by the way, we are cutting salary again because we don't have the budget, but we need to attract the best and brightest teachers.
While we are at it, we know that you have been teaching students for 10 years and have some of the highest test scores in the state, but this charter school that has only 3 students per class has a new method of teaching so we want you to start using it in your class of 35.
If the teacher can't keep the class in line, sometimes it is because they are not allowed to, not because they can't be bothered.
With the way teachers are treated these days, I would never recommend a teaching profession to anyone.
Re:back in my day (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What if.... (Score:3, Informative)
Good luck with that.
Re:I might be too old... (Score:4, Informative)
A crapload of lawsuits against the schools happened.
Citation? A friend of mine is a teacher, he says a phone ringing in class is very common these days, some of the kids even do it deliberately to look cool. He is allowed to (and does) confiscate the phones. He usually returns it at the end of the lesson, or if it's a repeat offender or some kid being smart at the end of the day. No phone for a day = not cool. The kids quickly learn to turn them off.
Of course, it is possible that in some countries confiscating phones is actually not allowed...
Re:back in my day (Score:5, Informative)
a lot of emergency management agencies are moving up to 800 mhz systems
from the great wiki:
# 806-824 MHz: Public safety and commercial 2-way (formerly TV channels 70-72)
# 824-851 MHz: Cellular A & B franchises, terminal (mobile phone) (formerly TV channels 73-77)
# 851-869 MHz: Public safety and commercial 2-way (formerly TV channels 77-80)
# 869-896 MHz: Cellular A & B franchises, base station (formerly TV channels 80-83)
it'd be very hard to filter out 824-851 and 869-896, at least passively, while still allowing the public safety frequencies to remain in use.
Re:back in my day (Score:3, Informative)
That's a terrible idea. What if the call coming in is "Your father just had a heart attack and we're rushing him to the hospital"? Not to mention the problem of being unable to call 911 in an emergency, the problem of first responders suddenly being unable to go to movies or restaurants, etc. There are very good reasons why jammers are illegal. They aren't the right solution. The right solution is to force cell network operators to allow businesses to run custom picocell or nanocell systems that tell the cell network when a phone enters a quiet zone.
Then, you surround the quiet zone with a proper Faraday cage so that the picocell doesn't bleed out into the street and the outside cell towers don't bleed into the quiet zone.
For an added bonus, you could make it so that after the usher finds the person and the person leaves the quiet zone, the cell network automatically detects the phone, rings it, and routes the call to that person, eliminating the need for a callback (handoff failures notwithstanding).
Re:back in my day (Score:3, Informative)
Re:back in my day (Score:3, Informative)
Blocking cell phones is the issue. The government and in fact most governments around the world, defined those frequency spaces as being an asset that could be sold, and that asset passed through all spaces ie. a government mandated seizure of the active use of those frequencies within all spaces public and private.
That sold clear access to that frequencies and the right to transmit into other peoples domains regardless of their preferences.
So jamming that frequency within your premises means you are stealing, that space which the government auctioned off to private parties without constraints or respect of your rights. Just because the transmission pass through your property in point of fact pass through 'you' does not me you own it or even have the right to control it. For that to happen you have to force the government to buy back the right to control and restrict those transmissions.
The corporations that bought your rights a fully legally entitled to prevent you blocking their use of what they have paid for or force the government to buy back the right to control transmission flow within the space you control and possibly even yourself. So what will the telecommunication companies, marketing organisations and lobbyists do when it comes to parents attempting to block the new wave of 24/7 direct marketing to children via mobile devices, do. Get them young, hook them in, buy, buy, buy, free cell phones and texting for children as long as they accept the adds. There are seriously big profits to be made by people who absolutely don't care about the damage done, in fact they take pride in being able to inflict that harm upon the rest of society, it speaks of their power.
Re:back in my day (Score:2, Informative)
Then we tried getting "tougher". We tried to take the cell phone away from the student until the end of the school day. That lasted about 2 weeks, until we were told we couldn't do that any longer because a parent decided to get a jazzy lawyer and sue the district. They, apparently, were convinced that we were endangering their student by taking away their ability to call for help in an emergency. Rather than fight it out in court (and risk losing, as these things tend to go), the county settled and changed the policy. Now, supposedly, the plan is to confiscate the battery, but let the student keep the phone. Of course, students now carry spare batteries, so it doesn't matter.
Rather than take the battery from the phone, would it not be a better idea to take the SIM?
If you take the battery and they have a spare, you achieve nothing. If they don't, then the phone is useless in an emergency.
If you take the SIM, the phone can still be used for emergency calls, but is otherwise severely limited in functionality.