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   From: etac506@etaoin.com   
      
   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   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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