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Daily Beast: Phone Jamming for NATO in Chicago
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Epsilon Tau Alpha
May 16, 2012, 10:06:24 AM5/16/12
to
On the Eve of the NATO Summit, Is Phone Jamming Coming to Chicago?
May 16, 2012 4:45 AM EDT
Tony Dokoupil reports on the little-known rules the government can use to
shut down phone networks.
With Chicago hosting the NATO summit this weekend, protesters and
police are braced for confrontation. Eight people have [26]already been
arrested for storming President Obama’s campaign headquarters. Others
have pledged to [27]“shut down” Boeing. And [28]gas-mask sales have
been brisk citywide. But much of the cat-and-mouse game will be
technological, with people in the streets wielding smartphones to
coordinate actions and publicize what’s happening, while law
enforcement mulls whether to take the power of those phones
away—disrupting service in the name of public safety.
Chicago Summits Social Media
To ward off violent protests, authorities in Chicago are considering
cutting off access to cellphone networks and social-media sites during
the city's G-8 and NATO summits. (Paul Beaty / AP Photo)
While the tactic is usually associated with [29]digital dictators
abroad—and the Obama administration has sharply criticized such
interruptions, even proposing sanctions against countries that curb
their peoples’ wireless freedom—shutdowns are a creeping American
phenomenon as well.
Often a perfectly legal one.
Not only do the FBI and Secret Service have standing authority to jam
signals, but they along with state and local authorities can also push
for the shutdown of cell towers, thanks to a little-known legacy of the
Bush administration: “Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) 303," which
lays out the nation’s official “Emergency Wireless Protocols.”
The protocols were developed after the 2005 London bombings in a
process that calls to mind an M.C. Escher work. First, the National
Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) formed a task
force— composed of anonymous government officials and executives from
Cingular, Microsoft, Motorola, Sprint, and Verizon—that issued a
private report to President Bush. Another acronym-dragging committee,
also meeting in secret, then approved the task force’s recommendations.
Thus, according to NSTAC’s 2006–07 [30]annual issue review, SOP 303 was
born.
"In time of national emergency," the review says, SOP 303 gives “State
Homeland Security Advisors, their designees, or representatives of the
DHS Homeland Security Operations Center” the power to call for “the
termination of private wireless network connections… within an entire
metropolitan area.” The decision is subject to review by the National
Coordinating Center, a government-industry group responsible for the
actual mechanics of the shutdown. The NCC is supposed to “authenticate”
the shutdown via “a series of questions.” But SOP 303 does not specify,
at least not publicly, what would constitute a “national emergency,” or
what questions the NCC then asks “to determine if the shutdown is a
necessary action.”
“It’s the nature of law enforcement to push the envelope… It’s act
first and litigate second.”
So when would a shutdown occur? The precedents vary. In 2005, after the
attacks on London, federal authorities turned off cellular network
services in New York’s Lincoln, Holland, Queens, and Battery Park
tunnels, fearing similar detonations, according to the review—which
notes “that action was undertaken without prior notice to wireless
carriers or the public.” In 2009, as President Obama was inaugurated,
federal authorities used special equipment to jam signals in downtown
Washington, citing the threat of remote-controlled bombs. Last summer,
in response to the less catastrophic risk of a potentially violent
protest following a police shooting, San Francisco transit officials
[31]shut off underground wireless service for three hours—a move the
ACLU has said was the first and only known time a government agency in
the U.S. has blocked electronic communications as a way to quell social
unrest.
But there may already be other cases. Jamming is routinely used to
secure visits from foreign dignitaries, according to a federal official
who [32]spoke to The Washington Post in 2009. Rumors of cellphone
jamming also swirled around the Occupy protests in New York earlier
this month; five people told The Daily Beast that they struggled to
send photos, tweets, and basic text messages.
“It’s the nature of law enforcement to push the envelope,” said Eugene
O’Donnell, a former New York City police instructor and professor of
police practice at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “It’s act
first and litigate second.”
While it’s against the law for individuals or nongovernmental
organizations to sell or use jammers, the devices are easily found
online. The U.S. military was among the first to use communications
shutdowns, and local government demand for the technology has been
building for years, even as the legal rules for its use have remained
ill-defined. Prison wardens want to snuff out the use of smuggled
cellphones by inmates; school officials hope to disable students’
phones; the National Transportation Safety Board wants to disable all
“portable electronic devices within reach of the driver” while cars are
in motion.
In Chicago, [33]an alderman’s bill that would ban the practice was
shunted off to committee. Questions about it compelled the mayor and
police commissioner to say they had no plans to jam phones, but they
didn’t take the option off the table.
Now other efforts to cut through the legal haze have emerged. In
response to the wireless shutdown in San Francisco last summer,
California State Sen. Alex Padilla introduced what would be [34]a
first-of-its-kind bill stipulating that to cut off service a judge must
sign off that the move is necessary to avert “significant dangers to
public health, safety or welfare.” If approved, the bill, which has the
backing of the American Civil Liberties Union, could become the gold
standard for state policy. San Francisco transit officials codified
their own policy, which remains quite vague, after the public backlash
to their shutdown. It calls for “strong evidence” of dangerous and
unlawful activity, a belief that an interruption will “substantially
reduce the likelihood of such an activity” and that the interruptions
are “narrowly tailored.”
The Federal Communication Commission has launched the most ambitious
effort, inviting a national conversation on guidelines. “We are
concerned that there has been insufficient discussion, analysis and
consideration of the questions raised by intentional interruptions of
wireless service by government authorities,” the commission wrote in a
request for public comments. In essence, it’s aiming to crowd-source a
new version of the existing “Emergency Wireless Protocols” that would
balance free speech, public safety, and security concerns.
But consensus is a long way off to judge by [35]the public comments.
Everyone seems to agree that government wireless shutdowns should be
legal in certain circumstances, but defining those circumstances proves
to be a vexing problem. So far there are only arguments, not answers
about how to weigh free speech against security concerns. The head of
BART calls shutdowns “a necessary tool to protect passengers.” Two
law-enforcement organizations, the International Association of Chiefs
of Police and the National Sheriffs' Association, urged the creation of
a study group, suggesting SOP 303 as the standard to beat. Boeing asked
the FCC to support the use of “wireless management devices” made by one
of its subsidiaries, calling them a “nuanced, low-impact alternative”
to widespread shutdowns.
The [36]ACLU, Verizon, and a coalition of public-interest groups noted
that cellphone blackouts would, with few exceptions, violate the
Constitution and federal communication law, as well as threaten public
safety by eliminating the means to share vital information or call 911.
Individual respondents tended to agree, though a few offered
particularly cranky dissents.
“Please do not in any manner, shape or form mistake the cell phone as a
right or freedom,” wrote one commentator. “It appears our society is
more concerned about liberties than being civil,” wrote another, who
added, “I support the efforts of [San Francisco transit officials] and
other agencies to quell these anarchist groups before their actions and
mischief cause greater public harm than that of a simple wireless
disruption."
Anarchists, and anyone else for that matter, have until May 30 to
[37]reply to these and other comments on the FCC website. The
proceeding number is 12-52.
Tony Dokoupil is a senior writer at Newsweek and The Daily Beast.
References:
23. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/16/on-the-eve-of-the-
nato-summit-is-phone-jamming-coming-to-chicago.print.html
24. javascript:void(0);
25. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/16/on-the-eve-of-the-
nato-summit-is-phone-jamming-coming-to-chicago.html#comments
26. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/natosummit/ct-met-nato-
catholic-worker-protest-20120515,0,5818781.story
27. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-05-11/news/ct-met-nato-
occupy-chicago-plans-0511-20120511_1_protesters-plan-nato-summit-march-
downtown
28. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-15/emanuel-gambles-chicago-on-
nato-event-to-get-global-stage.html
29. http://www.brookings.edu/%7E/media/Files/rc/
papers/2011/10_dictators_digital_network/10_dictators_digital_network.pdf
30. http://www.ncs.gov/nstac/reports/2007/2006-2007%20NSTAC%20Issue%
20Review.pdf
31. http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20091822-245/s.f-subway-muzzles-
cell-service-during-protest/
32. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/31/
AR2009013101548.html
33. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/15/anticrackdown-ordinance-
a_n_1278680.html
34. http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/
view;jsessionid=MSV3PglVyQp2GvB3hctLJGRJ6tPmKNV1sLPLnjZkFNDGBtLGJ01B%
21-1221852939%21-1969853125?id=7021914762
35. http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/proceeding/view?name=12-52
36. http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-free-speech/
shutting-down-cell-service-during-protests-constitutional
May 16, 2012 4:45 AM EDT
Tony Dokoupil reports on the little-known rules the government can use to
shut down phone networks.
With Chicago hosting the NATO summit this weekend, protesters and
police are braced for confrontation. Eight people have [26]already been
arrested for storming President Obama’s campaign headquarters. Others
have pledged to [27]“shut down” Boeing. And [28]gas-mask sales have
been brisk citywide. But much of the cat-and-mouse game will be
technological, with people in the streets wielding smartphones to
coordinate actions and publicize what’s happening, while law
enforcement mulls whether to take the power of those phones
away—disrupting service in the name of public safety.
Chicago Summits Social Media
To ward off violent protests, authorities in Chicago are considering
cutting off access to cellphone networks and social-media sites during
the city's G-8 and NATO summits. (Paul Beaty / AP Photo)
While the tactic is usually associated with [29]digital dictators
abroad—and the Obama administration has sharply criticized such
interruptions, even proposing sanctions against countries that curb
their peoples’ wireless freedom—shutdowns are a creeping American
phenomenon as well.
Often a perfectly legal one.
Not only do the FBI and Secret Service have standing authority to jam
signals, but they along with state and local authorities can also push
for the shutdown of cell towers, thanks to a little-known legacy of the
Bush administration: “Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) 303," which
lays out the nation’s official “Emergency Wireless Protocols.”
The protocols were developed after the 2005 London bombings in a
process that calls to mind an M.C. Escher work. First, the National
Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) formed a task
force— composed of anonymous government officials and executives from
Cingular, Microsoft, Motorola, Sprint, and Verizon—that issued a
private report to President Bush. Another acronym-dragging committee,
also meeting in secret, then approved the task force’s recommendations.
Thus, according to NSTAC’s 2006–07 [30]annual issue review, SOP 303 was
born.
"In time of national emergency," the review says, SOP 303 gives “State
Homeland Security Advisors, their designees, or representatives of the
DHS Homeland Security Operations Center” the power to call for “the
termination of private wireless network connections… within an entire
metropolitan area.” The decision is subject to review by the National
Coordinating Center, a government-industry group responsible for the
actual mechanics of the shutdown. The NCC is supposed to “authenticate”
the shutdown via “a series of questions.” But SOP 303 does not specify,
at least not publicly, what would constitute a “national emergency,” or
what questions the NCC then asks “to determine if the shutdown is a
necessary action.”
“It’s the nature of law enforcement to push the envelope… It’s act
first and litigate second.”
So when would a shutdown occur? The precedents vary. In 2005, after the
attacks on London, federal authorities turned off cellular network
services in New York’s Lincoln, Holland, Queens, and Battery Park
tunnels, fearing similar detonations, according to the review—which
notes “that action was undertaken without prior notice to wireless
carriers or the public.” In 2009, as President Obama was inaugurated,
federal authorities used special equipment to jam signals in downtown
Washington, citing the threat of remote-controlled bombs. Last summer,
in response to the less catastrophic risk of a potentially violent
protest following a police shooting, San Francisco transit officials
[31]shut off underground wireless service for three hours—a move the
ACLU has said was the first and only known time a government agency in
the U.S. has blocked electronic communications as a way to quell social
unrest.
But there may already be other cases. Jamming is routinely used to
secure visits from foreign dignitaries, according to a federal official
who [32]spoke to The Washington Post in 2009. Rumors of cellphone
jamming also swirled around the Occupy protests in New York earlier
this month; five people told The Daily Beast that they struggled to
send photos, tweets, and basic text messages.
“It’s the nature of law enforcement to push the envelope,” said Eugene
O’Donnell, a former New York City police instructor and professor of
police practice at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “It’s act
first and litigate second.”
While it’s against the law for individuals or nongovernmental
organizations to sell or use jammers, the devices are easily found
online. The U.S. military was among the first to use communications
shutdowns, and local government demand for the technology has been
building for years, even as the legal rules for its use have remained
ill-defined. Prison wardens want to snuff out the use of smuggled
cellphones by inmates; school officials hope to disable students’
phones; the National Transportation Safety Board wants to disable all
“portable electronic devices within reach of the driver” while cars are
in motion.
In Chicago, [33]an alderman’s bill that would ban the practice was
shunted off to committee. Questions about it compelled the mayor and
police commissioner to say they had no plans to jam phones, but they
didn’t take the option off the table.
Now other efforts to cut through the legal haze have emerged. In
response to the wireless shutdown in San Francisco last summer,
California State Sen. Alex Padilla introduced what would be [34]a
first-of-its-kind bill stipulating that to cut off service a judge must
sign off that the move is necessary to avert “significant dangers to
public health, safety or welfare.” If approved, the bill, which has the
backing of the American Civil Liberties Union, could become the gold
standard for state policy. San Francisco transit officials codified
their own policy, which remains quite vague, after the public backlash
to their shutdown. It calls for “strong evidence” of dangerous and
unlawful activity, a belief that an interruption will “substantially
reduce the likelihood of such an activity” and that the interruptions
are “narrowly tailored.”
The Federal Communication Commission has launched the most ambitious
effort, inviting a national conversation on guidelines. “We are
concerned that there has been insufficient discussion, analysis and
consideration of the questions raised by intentional interruptions of
wireless service by government authorities,” the commission wrote in a
request for public comments. In essence, it’s aiming to crowd-source a
new version of the existing “Emergency Wireless Protocols” that would
balance free speech, public safety, and security concerns.
But consensus is a long way off to judge by [35]the public comments.
Everyone seems to agree that government wireless shutdowns should be
legal in certain circumstances, but defining those circumstances proves
to be a vexing problem. So far there are only arguments, not answers
about how to weigh free speech against security concerns. The head of
BART calls shutdowns “a necessary tool to protect passengers.” Two
law-enforcement organizations, the International Association of Chiefs
of Police and the National Sheriffs' Association, urged the creation of
a study group, suggesting SOP 303 as the standard to beat. Boeing asked
the FCC to support the use of “wireless management devices” made by one
of its subsidiaries, calling them a “nuanced, low-impact alternative”
to widespread shutdowns.
The [36]ACLU, Verizon, and a coalition of public-interest groups noted
that cellphone blackouts would, with few exceptions, violate the
Constitution and federal communication law, as well as threaten public
safety by eliminating the means to share vital information or call 911.
Individual respondents tended to agree, though a few offered
particularly cranky dissents.
“Please do not in any manner, shape or form mistake the cell phone as a
right or freedom,” wrote one commentator. “It appears our society is
more concerned about liberties than being civil,” wrote another, who
added, “I support the efforts of [San Francisco transit officials] and
other agencies to quell these anarchist groups before their actions and
mischief cause greater public harm than that of a simple wireless
disruption."
Anarchists, and anyone else for that matter, have until May 30 to
[37]reply to these and other comments on the FCC website. The
proceeding number is 12-52.
Tony Dokoupil is a senior writer at Newsweek and The Daily Beast.
References:
23. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/16/on-the-eve-of-the-
nato-summit-is-phone-jamming-coming-to-chicago.print.html
24. javascript:void(0);
25. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/16/on-the-eve-of-the-
nato-summit-is-phone-jamming-coming-to-chicago.html#comments
26. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/natosummit/ct-met-nato-
catholic-worker-protest-20120515,0,5818781.story
27. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-05-11/news/ct-met-nato-
occupy-chicago-plans-0511-20120511_1_protesters-plan-nato-summit-march-
downtown
28. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-15/emanuel-gambles-chicago-on-
nato-event-to-get-global-stage.html
29. http://www.brookings.edu/%7E/media/Files/rc/
papers/2011/10_dictators_digital_network/10_dictators_digital_network.pdf
30. http://www.ncs.gov/nstac/reports/2007/2006-2007%20NSTAC%20Issue%
20Review.pdf
31. http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20091822-245/s.f-subway-muzzles-
cell-service-during-protest/
32. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/31/
AR2009013101548.html
33. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/15/anticrackdown-ordinance-
a_n_1278680.html
34. http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/
view;jsessionid=MSV3PglVyQp2GvB3hctLJGRJ6tPmKNV1sLPLnjZkFNDGBtLGJ01B%
21-1221852939%21-1969853125?id=7021914762
35. http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/proceeding/view?name=12-52
36. http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-free-speech/
shutting-down-cell-service-during-protests-constitutional
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