DOJ Implores FCC to Combat Prison Cellphone Problem

The US Department of Justice is pressing federal regulators to come up with a way of keeping inmates from using cellphones in the nation's prisons. In a letter, Assistant Attorney General Beth Williams told the Federal Communications Commission that addressing the security threat posed by contraband cellphones "should be a chief priority" of both the FCC and Justice, which oversees the federal Bureau of Prisons.

The letter follows an appeal from South Carolina's prisons director to Attorney General Jeff Sessions in June, beseeching the top prosecutor for help pursuing FCC permission to jam cell signals of the phones, which are thrown over fences, smuggled by errant employees, even delivered by drone. A decades-old law says federal officials can grant permission to jam the public airwaves only to federal agencies, not state or local ones. Telecommunications companies are opposed, saying jamming cell signals could set a bad precedent and interfere with legal cell users nearby.