IP: end of U.S. Considers Restricting Cellphone Use in Disasters

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> To: dave () farber net
> From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
>
> > [ now talk about public panic , this will most likely cause it in a
> > emergency. Especially when the "officials" use it to check on THEIR 
> family.
> > Would not making the infrastucture more robust be a better route  djf]
>
> Dave,
>
> I can just imagine the reaction after an earthquake, when it turns out that
> members of the public were trapped under rubble, could have made cell phone
> calls for help, but were prevented from doing so by all of the "priority"
> calls blocking the system, many of which no doubt would prove to actually be
> of a personal rather than real priority nature.
>
> There *must* be a reasonable cellular allocation between "emergency calls"
> being given priority and "ordinary" callers, even in emergency situations.
> The penalties for use of priority codes in non-emergency situations, or
> for making non-emergency calls using priority codes during emergencies,
> must be very strict indeed.
>
> But there's another *very* important issue.  More and more, we're seeing
> public agencies starting to depend upon the public cell phone network for
> communications that more properly should be on their own private radio
> networks.  "Why keep spending money on private systems, when we can just
> *take over* the public system," they say.  This not only puts emergency
> communications at risk when the not-always-robust cell network systems fail,
> but also puts the public's ability to communicate during an emergency at
> risk as well.
>
> I agree with you -- I can't think of many better ways to start *real* panics
> than making sure that ordinary folks are effectively blocked from getting
> cellular calls through in such situations.
>
> --Lauren--
> Lauren Weinstein
> lauren () pfir org or lauren () vortex com or lauren () privacyforum org
> Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
> Co-Founder, PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
> Co-Founder, Fact Squad - http://www.factsquad.org
> Co-Founder, URIICA - Union for Representative International Internet
>                      Cooperation and Analysis - http://www.uriica.org
> Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
> Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy

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