Homeland Security Insider
Calling All Security Threats
Federal judges and court officials are scratching their heads over the increasing array of wireless communication devices, personal digital assistants, mobile phones, BlackBerrys and wireless laptop computers -- not over how to use them, but what to do with them when the devices appear in the courtroom.
Judges across the country are confiscating cell phones to prevent courtroom observers from instantly sending messages that relay witness or case information directly to people outside the courtroom. How would you respond to a picture of your wife on jury duty being sent anonymously to you in an e-mail?
Likewise, police officers and prosecutors are increasingly frustrated by their inability to successfully investigate and prosecute criminal cases when key witnesses refuse to provide critical evidence or to testify for fear of retaliation by the defendant or his or her family and friends. During a recent gang-related trial, friends of the defendant were seen using camera phones to photograph a prosecutor, a police investigator and a witness who was testifying.
Judges across the country are confiscating cell phones to prevent courtroom observers from instantly sending messages that relay witness or case information directly to people outside the courtroom. How would you respond to a picture of your wife on jury duty being sent anonymously to you in an e-mail?
Until recently, wireless communication devices weren't a problem because so few people had them. Today, however, industry statistics reveal that 180 million Americans are wireless subscribers. That's about 60 percent of the total U.S. population. Cell phones with built-in digital cameras and e-mail allow sneaky students to send silent questions and answers to one another -- right under teachers' noses. Students have been caught using a computer's spell checker on a test that evaluated, in part, spelling and listening to iPods with recorded lecture notes. Crib notes and dictionaries can be viewed on digital music players, which have a screen about the size of a postage stamp. These devices become a digital cheat sheet in the hands of unscrupulous students. Cell phone cameras also have created privacy concerns in locker rooms and other places where people expect privacy.
If it isn't enough that mobile phone use in courthouses, classrooms and locker rooms is a big problem, mobile phones also are the No. 1 smuggled contraband item in prisons. A review of contraband reports in Maryland showed 121 cell phones as being confiscated during a sweep of nine of the state's 26 prisons. Although strictly prohibited, cell phones still manage to get into the hands of inmates. In two maximum-security prisons in the same state, 92 cell phones were confiscated over a 10-month period.
These cell phones give inmates the ability to arrange drug deals or to continue direct, outside criminal activity while incarcerated. Now, there is another reason to ban cell phones from prisons. A private company is marketing a device that looks like a cell phone -- but is, in fact, a handgun capable of firing a .22-caliber round.
Signs do not stop people from using cell phones in unauthorized areas or at inappropriate times. On a recent flight, a passenger next to me made a call to family members while we were still in the air right before landing -- a time when interference with the aircraft's avionics potentially has the greatest risk to flight safety. After landing, I observed a number of passengers using cell phones in the passport control area in clear view of Department of Homeland Security signs banning cell phone usage in the area. The only way to prevent inappropriate, dangerous or illegal activity involving cell phone usage is to prevent the phone's entry into restricted areas. This is easier said than done. There are plenty of products on the market that can detect and track a cell phone signal. But these technologies are ineffective when the cell phone is turned off.
Cell phones not only transmit photographs, e-mail, voice or video, but are also the detonator of choice for most improvised explosive devices (IED). The U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan is defeating IEDs by use of a dampening field surrounding friendly formations. However, this dampening field does not detect the presence of the explosive -- it only blocks the cell phone signal from reaching the detonator. A patient terrorist will wait until an unprotected target approaches.
Another technique to defeat IEDs is to scan for the presence of either the explosive or the electronics in the detonator. The same technology that screens for the electronic detonator can be used to discover hidden cell phones in restricted areas. The beauty of his technology is that cell phones don't need to be in operation to be detected. The search is for the material from which the device is constructed, not the signal that emanates from it in operation.
It's all too clear that screening people with current-generation metal detectors prior to entering secured areas, such as court houses, is ineffective in preventing some weapons, including cell phones, from getting through. To detect the cell phone in this manner requires the metal detector to be set to such a low tolerance level that it literally picks up the fillings in your teeth, requiring a pat down search of virtually every entrant. To detect cell phones or electronic detonators with any degree of certainty is nearly impossible given the tools screeners have available today.
Screeners need a reliable way to detect and identify non-metallic weapons or other threatening objects that may be concealed under clothing. As I wrote last month, one promising field involves millimeter wave imaging technologies that readily penetrate clothing, thus allowing the visualization of hidden objects to include cell phones.
While we wait for these technologies to make their way into the marketplace, we can take comfort that the average criminal in the United States often proves to be from the bottom of the gene pool. Recently, a fellow was convicted and imprisoned for six years after leaving his camera phone -- with photos of him and his wife -- at the scene of the crime. He dropped his phone when he and his accomplice were switching cars after the robbery.