FBI and DHS object to cell phones on airplanes

[rick_reno]

May 31, ZDNet News — FBI and DHS object to cell phones on airplanes. The FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are objecting to a proposal to permit the use of cellular telephones and other wireless devices on airplanes. Unless telecommunications providers follow a lengthy list of eavesdropping requirements for calls made aloft, the FBI and
DHS don't want cellular or wireless connections to be permitted. In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) sent last Thursday, May 26, the police agencies said any rule permitting "in-flight personal wireless telephone use must consider public safety and national security" concerns. At the moment, technical and social reasons keep cell phones
muted during flight. The FCC is considering proposals to relax those restrictions The FBI and DHS say that the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA, requires that airlines follow strict wiretapping guidelines. The police agencies, for instance,
want to be able to eavesdrop on conversations no "more than 10 minutes" after the call is made. "There is a short window of opportunity in which action can be taken to thwart … crisis situations onboard an aircraft, and law enforcement needs to maximize its ability to respond to
these potentially lethal situations," the agencies say in their letter.

Letter to FCC: http://www.askcalea.com/docs/20050526_doj_fcc-wt-04-435.pdf
Source: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1035_22-5726850.html

 

[TarpleyG]

FBI/DHS--screw you! Can't they get out of everyone's bidness? Now, I am in no way in favor of allowing cell phone usage on planes just because flying with 300 other people is already PITA enough. Imagine at least half of them on the phone while you are flying (and there will be half of them doing it too). It's already almost comical as soon as the plane hits the gate now the way these people whip out a phone and start making calls. *** did people do before cell phones?

Greg

 

[45Badger]

Scew the FBI and DHS, screw the big brother paranoia-

I don't want to have to listen to those insufferable asses either! I fly weekly for business, and between listening to every self important and loud jabber-jaws waiting for take-off, on the rental car shuttle, and avoiding those phone distracted soccer mom and teen drivers, I cherish the two hours of loud engine roar.

Do we really need to be subjected to great aunt Edna's gall stones story, teen angst, or Joe blow sales rep's frantic message checking at 35,000 feet?

 

[Nazirite]

So do I, it’s extremely annoying at least to me to hear some obnoxious person taking as loud as they can on their cell phone. It’s drivers me nuts at work and it’s always the same people at the same time of the day.

*** did people do before cell phones

That's what I want to know.

 

[Flyboy]

TarpleyG is right on the money here. I think Douglas Adams had a brilliant explanation of these inconsiderate twits: "if they don't keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working." While I don't want to sit next to one--or even in the same cabin as one--on a flight, that's no reason to make it illegal.

The truly scary thing here is DHS/FBI's reason for interfering. They're saying, in so many words, that we shouldn't be allowed to have conversations upon which they can't eavesdrop.

Go back and read that again. Unless telecommunications providers follow a lengthy list of eavesdropping requirements for calls made aloft, the FBI and DHS don't want cellular or wireless connections to be permitted.

The next portion is going to sound like like I need to adjust my copper chapeau, so take it with a grain of salt. If the argument is that we--the commoners--aren't to be trusted to have a conversation without government supervision, then the logical extreme of this policy is to forbid us to have any conversation--even a face-to-face discussion--out of the range of a microphone. I'm not proposing this, and I'm not suggesting that such a policy is in any serious jeopardy of being implemented, but such illustrations can be useful to demonstrate the mindset of the regulators. These people--our government, nominally our rulers--want to deny us the ability to talk without allowing them to listen. That's more than a little bit disturbing.

(Besides which, there are several flaws in their argument. First of all, the call can be monitored at the other end, or even at ground-based equipment anywhere along the line. Second, the airlines are also adding in-flight data networks. Audioconferencing software, particularly with encryption, would get around this, as would instant messaging software, or even e-mail. But the Feds aren't going to let a few trivial facts get in the way of an opportunity to eavesdrop, now are they?)

 

[griz]

"There is a short window of opportunity in which action can be taken to thwart … crisis situations onboard an aircraft

I'm not an LEO, but I would guess this window is while the plane is on the ground. So why would they worry about in flight calls?

 

[Cosmoline]

I find it ironic that citizens using in-flight cell phones did more to prevent tragedy on 9/11 than all the king's horses and men. While the flight crews cooperated fully with the terrorists as ordered to under the FAR's, and the powers that be tripped over each other trying to figure out what was going on, the passengers on Flight 93 used their cell phones to figure out what was happening and acted.

 

[fjolnirsson]

Cosmoline,
You should know better than to rely on facts. After all, (say it with me, now) "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear". Besides, "Its for the children!"

 

[Gordon Fink]

I’m not an LEO, but I would guess this window is while the plane is on the ground. So why would they worry about in flight calls?

I suspect they mean the window of opportunity needed to scramble an interceptor and shoot down the airliner—the President’s preferred alternative to armed aircrews.

~G. Fink

 

[rick_reno]

I'm betting one of the "lengthy list of eavesdropping requirements for calls made aloft" is you identify the FBI agent on the plane and have him place the call for you. The agent does all the talking into the phone for you. The agent could be placed in a special seat that resembles a phone booth while on board the plane.

What I found interesting about this is what it doesn't say - they can listen to cell phone conversations now on the ground and do it quickly.

 

[griz]

They can shoot it down while the passengers are on the phone. I just don't see a connection to their claim of it being a law enforcement issue.

 

[Joejojoba111]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the real reason you can't make cell-phone calls on an airplane is because they are free, and the airplane has it's own phones that aren't free.

Anyone who thinks that an 800mhz device is going to mess with an airplane's electronics is insane, airplanes fly slow and low over cell-phone towers all the time, the whole reason that each type of instrument has it's own bandwidth is exactly so that there won't be interference! 800mhz does not interfere with avionics.

What happens, so I've heard, is that a person on a cell-phone on an airplane is moving so quickly that their signal is stepping from one tower to the next faster than the cell system can handle, so the call is free.

There you have it, asui, while billions of people fear their cell-phones will confuse the pilot's navigation system, the real reason they don't want you to make calls is because they would be free.

So maybe what the FBI is hinting at, without saying, is that the same mechanism that would make your phone-call free would make your phone-call difficult to trace tap and record.

 

[Joejojoba111]

BTW Cosmoline great point, that's exactly the issue, so freaking true.

 

[Kamicosmos]

Just to play devils advocate:

Of course, cell phones can be used on board large aircraft to coordinate communication and action between terrorists. This would be made much less noticable if everyone was yaking away on their phones.

Cell phones are routinely used to set off bombs, look to Israel and Iraq for proof of this. But, if the bomb is already on the plane....doesn't much matter I suppose.

Now, not allowing people to talk on cell phones in flight as a dual purpose of not annoying other passengers and making money off the in-plane phones? I'm all good with that.

 

[Standing Wolf]

I don't understand why the F., the B., and the I. don't concentrate on criminals and leave us law-abiding American citizens the @#$%^&! alone.

 

[dev_null]

While I too would like more cellphone courtesy (anyone remember that word?), my tinfoilhat response is that perhaps the Feds find it harder to illegally listen in on your conversation when you're airborne.

 

[logical]

I find it ironic that citizens using in-flight cell phones did more to prevent tragedy on 9/11 than all the king's horses and men. While the flight crews cooperated fully with the terrorists as ordered to under the FAR's, and the powers that be tripped over each other trying to figure out what was going on, the passengers on Flight 93 used their cell phones to figure out what was happening and acted.

It's debatable whether they accomplished anything in your example....but fine, the rule should be no cell phone use on planes except in cases of hijacking. OK?

 

[org]

Celphones don't work most of the time on aircraft anyway. Maybe at very low altitudes, but not for most of the flight. Unless technology changes, it's a nonproblem.

 

[Flyboy]

Double-tap. I skipped the IPSC match this morning, but it doesn't look like it skipped me.

 

[Flyboy]

Celphones don't work most of the time on aircraft anyway. Maybe at very low altitudes, but not for most of the flight. Unless technology changes, it's a nonproblem.

Technology like, say, little cells on the airplane, downlinked to the ground?

The FCC is considering proposals to relax those restrictions. One possibility, for instance, would be to permit "pico cells" inside a commercial airliner that would create a cabin-wide hot spot for voice and Internet links.

Read The Fine Article.

Also in the fine article are some legitimate technological hurdles--for instance, the feds want to be able to find out in which seat the caller is sitting. They want to localize, to about two feet, a wireless device, and without GPS (GPS isn't reliable in a Faraday cage like a metal fuselage, and moving at 500 mph makes realtime 2' accuracy...challenging). They also want to be able to shut off service to everybody except "government agents." Unless agents are either using special phones, or their phones' ESNs are registered as "special," this isn't likely either.

In short, this is just another Great Steaming Load from federal law enforcement that will expand power over regular citizens, add expense and complexity for providers, and be absolutely trivial for those with ill intent to bypass.

 

[2nd Amendment]

It's debatable whether they accomplished anything in your example....

Hmm, well, no, it's not. But I suppose some people will always want to imagine nothing good happens without an official of government overseeing it.

but fine, the rule should be no cell phone use on planes except in cases of hijacking. OK?

No, how about the rule be those people determined to insist everyone act to please them, or everyone submit to whatever Big Brother crap makes them feel safer WALK!. Hell, maybe they'll live longer, exercise being good for the body and such...

 

[Dionysusigma]

How about the FCC, FBI, DHS, FAA, and any other TLA gov't agencies do the following:

1) Get off our collective behinds,

2) Pull their heads out of theirs,

3) Put two doors on the outside of the plane, on opposite sides: one for the passenger cabin (not sure if my choice of words is redundant there... ah well) and one for the cockpit, with a wall of kevlar/ steel/ sand/ kryptonite separating the two sections.

Either compartment is only accessible from the outside; thus hijackers in the cabin can't get to the flight deck, and anyone flying the plane that decides to take the passengers hostage will have a heck of a time ensuring that the passengers stay on the plane once it lands. Fully shield the cargo hold, thus blocking any radio signals from remote detonators(sp?).

4) Have different cell phone companies fund/advertise on each flight. For instance: "Welcome aboard Flight XYZ, brought to you in part by T-Mobile. All passengers who have service with T-Mobile have unlimited free features on this flight, including text messaging, ringtone downloads, web browsing, game downloads, et. al. All of our passengers who do not yet have T-Mobile service are billed an additional $2.00 a minute while we are airborne. And now, the Safety Lecture..." Cell phones are not only allowed, they're encouraged. Cell provider makes extra money (if they do a good job at hooking people on the plane... I mean, what else are they going to do during a 9-hour flight to Germany?); airliners charge less, in turn gaining more customers, in turn making a larger profit. Everyone wins (until a T-Mobile user gets on a Cingular flight and forgets :banghead: ).

All we need is an updated plane design (how old are these 2-4 engined flying tube designs, anyway? ) and a willing cell company.

 

[Joejojoba111]

Oh oh better yet, reduce the airplane to the minimal dimensions with a high power/weight ration, and then just tow gliders with passengers and mail! Any trouble in the back and you can just loose the tow rope!

 

[TallPine]

 

[GRB]

Some of you sure get bent out of shape once the federal government is mentioned. Some immediaely attacked saying screw the FBI and DHS and that they should not make cell phone use illegal. You had better read up on this again - it is already against regulations, they are not trying to make it so, they are trying to prevent the regulations from being relaxed unless the cell phone companies guarantee that the aloft cell phones can be tapped into within 10 minutes of initiating a call. This is not to spy on people, this is to react to a hijacking. Sounds fairly reasonable to me.