Monterrey Churches Find Way to Finally Jam Cellphones
This is more of a local news event, but I find it a bit interesting, since an article regarding the situation got published in The Seattle Times.
As the article points out
“Fed up with cellphones ringing during Mass, four Catholic churches in Monterrey, Mexico, are taking extreme measures to silence them.“
I do simpathize with the churches because I sometimes find myself really pissed off at some of the people who calmly take their ringing cell phone and answer it saying “Estoy en misa we!!!” (stands for “I’m in mass, dude/tte”). It’s supposed to be illegal, but I don’t find any reason to make any legal claims against those churches.
These devices were described as “$1,500 jammers are boxes about the size of walkie-talkies. As churchgoers walk into the sanctuary, the devices overwhelm the phones with electronic noise. Within a few minutes, the phones show “no signal.” Incoming calls don’t ring, and calls are bounced to the phones’ voice mail.”
There are allegedly four churches with jammers, but only three were mentioned:
That was two years ago. Word has gotten around, and now the Rosario, San Juan Bosco and Our Lady Queen of the Angels churches all have jammers
Also, the devices are supposed to be illegal:
In the United States, cellphone jammers are supposed to be used only by embassies, the military, the Secret Service and police, who use the devices to isolate hostage-takers. Mexico also uses them in prisons to block smuggled cellphones.
But we also have to take into account that we’re entering a closed space, and not any closed space… but God’s place…
“The wireless carriers will tell you it’s an etiquette problem. But when it gets to the point where people are not using etiquette, it is my belief that the proprietor of a closed space has the right to enforce the etiquette,” said Dave Derosier, founder of Washington-based Cell Block Technologies
Well, that’s about it. What do you guys think? Do you think we should enforce the etiuette? How can we push people into having the good manners everyone is lacking nowadays?
UPDATE: Some sort of followup has been posted.
wilde_thought wrote:
I read about these cell phone jamming devices about five years ago. Certain fancy restaurants in NY and elsewhere have them too. Of course they don’t tell anyone about them. I knew they weren’t sold to joe average but I didn’t know they were illegal in the states.
Posted on 23-Sep-04 at 9:33 pm | Permalink
Good Wife wrote:
People will always be cluless about how and when to use etiquette. I think the jammers are an excellent idea for church. They are just an excellent idea in general. I suppose the only probmlem that would arise would be if an emergency situation arose and people needed to use their cell phones. Then could the jammers be turned off?? Very interesting…
xoxo
Posted on 24-Sep-04 at 7:25 am | Permalink
rolandog wrote:
Wow, WT, who could’ve expected fancy restaurants to use jammers. But I think that I know why they’re illegal. Perhaps they’re illegal because they would be some sort of information control (useful in terrorist attacks so that misinformation and chaos prevails)
And as I once commented to Professor Mel, “Information is Power… prevent information leakage and you got yourself some degree of control.”
(Yay, this is the first time I quote myself.)
And well, emergency situations are always an exception, GW, but you’re right, I think that jammers have a certain reach, magnitude and to my knowledge are activated or deactivated easily. So outside of a church, during Mass celebration, you might get a signal, if the jammer doesn’t have a long reach.
Posted on 24-Sep-04 at 11:45 pm | Permalink