COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Federal officials this week oversaw the examination at a South Carolina prison of a cellphone symbol jamming technique that some expectation will help warfare the threaten posed by inmates with smuggled cellphones, officials told The Associated Press.
The examination took location can the lesson of five days at a housing unit at broad river Correctional Institution, a maximum-security prison at Columbia, South Carolina, according to rescue of integrity officials. Assistant lawyer general Beth Williams told AP it's the first time federal officials dine collaborated with officials at a condition prison because such a test.
Officials did no liberate the results of the test, which will exist included at a afterward explain to exist done by the National Telecommunications and data Administration.
The examination marks further can the state-level quest to stamp out contraband cellphone use, which officials dine expectation said represents the sumit security threaten within their institutions. Micro-jamming technique was tested final year at a federal prison - where officials said they were able to shut down phone signals internal a prison cell, cottage devices approximately 20 feet (6 meters) away worked normally - nevertheless a decades-old constitution says condition or local agencies don't dine the authority to press the public airwaves.
South Carolina Corrections Director Bryan Stirling, who because years has spoken out can the dangers posed by the devices smuggled into institutions by the thousands, told AP he was recently deputized because a especial deputy U.S. Marshal, accordingly giving him the federal condition needed to accompany the jamming test.
"I'm equal encouraged by what we witnessed at broad river this week," Stirling told AP can Friday, adding that he's optimistic approximately federal legislation, introduced final month, that used to recent condition prison officials the ability to press signals.
In 2008, South Carolina officials received a waiver from the Federal Communications committee to accompany a jamming examination at a different maximum-security prison, at a demonstration because media and other officials nevertheless no at a prison dorm.
Stirling and other condition prison directors apply other measures - similar perimeter netting, monitoring by drone, and scanners - to find cellphones nevertheless attorney a jamming technique that used to shut down sum signals because the best feasible defense.
In 2017, Stirling testified at a FCC hearing at Washington alongside Robert Johnson, a preceding South Carolina corrections officer about killed at 2010 at a overcome orchestrated by an inmate using an illegal phone.
Also that year, an inmate escaped from a maximum-security prison at South Carolina, thanks at divide to a smuggled cellphone. at 2018, seven inmates at a maximum-security South Carolina prison were killed at what officials dine said was a masses warfare can sphere and contraband including cellphones.
The FCC has shown willingness to work can the issue, holding a field hearing at South Carolina and hosting meetings with members of Congress, prisons officials and stakeholders from the wireless industry.
On Friday, Williams said officials are working to ensure prisons dine technological options to help them warfare the smuggled devices.
"It is equal difficult to invent sure that no contraband gets in," Williams told AP. "We trouble because difficult because we can, nevertheless it's indeed difficult to interval everything."
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Meg Kinnard can exist reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP
