ATLANTA-A small Florida company that sells equipment that can be used to jam cell phone reception is continuing in its quest to allow wider use of the technology, despite having its lawsuit over the issue thrown out of federal district court.
The company has now re-filed its lawsuit against the FCC and U.S. government in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.
The federal government currently allows only federal agencies to jam wireless frequencies, and CellAntenna Corp. claims that the Federal Communications Commission is wrongly denying state and local jurisdictions the ability to use radio frequency jamming to prevent terrorist attacks.
Cell-phone detonators are thought to have been used in the terrorist attacks on trains in Madrid and sometimes in roadside bombs in Iraq. CellAntenna claims that cellular jamming equipment “can disable a bomb designed to be detonated by the use of a remote cellular telephone” and that it has been contacted by several state and local law enforcement agencies about its technology.
The company claims that while the Homeland Security Act passed by Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks specifically urges the empowerment of local agencies, the FCC is preventing that by not allowing them to use cellular jamming equipment. The company also claims that two sections of the Communications Act of 1934 are unconstitutional and violate the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment because the prohibition is arbitrary and “not rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest,” according to the company’s original complaint.
CellAntenna filed a suit against the FCC and U.S. government in U.S. District Court in April, but the government asked that the suit be thrown out because CellAntenna lacked legal standing and the court had no jurisdiction. The dismissal was granted due to jurisdictional issues, and the suit has since been re-filed in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.
