New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelley is talking about jamming cellphones when a terror attack occurs. During last month’s attacks on Mumbai, perpetrators took direction via cellphone from “handlers” who were apparently following the media coverage. Thus they could relay both general information about the authorities’ response as it unfolded and specific information coming from outside the besieged hotels. Conceivably, even those multiple Twitter feeds coming from the chaotic scene could have been part of the terrorists’ information universe – though it’s not clear if they were, or how useful that gusher of information would be.
So jamming cell phones could have some utility – like cutting off the power during a hostage situation, cut off all access to the outside world. (Of course, cellphones might stop working on their own because the system gets overloaded, as it did during 9/11 and Katrina.) But this would raise a host of technical and legal issues. Could they isolate and individually jam the phones in question? (Unclear – if they could do this quickly, it would probably be more useful listening in.) And how narrowly could the jamming area be targeted? Even if it could be limited to a single building, that would also jam the phones of hostages (or would-be John McClanes) whose communications with the outside world might be useful or important. As well as the phones of journalists and onlookers outside who are documenting the event to the outside world.
The authorities might view the intense focus by gadget-wielding observers to be part of the problem, conveying too much information to the world at large that could filter back to the terrorists. But an information quarantine itself could be dangerous and counterproductive, arrogating a lot of power to the state – like the universal eavesdropping technology Batman reluctantly employs in The Dark Knight.
In truth, I doubt that onlookers with cellphones pose a major problem for antiterrorism strategists, but this does show some of the difficulties of confronting an unfolding attack amid a cloud of digital information. Gadgets and the Internet give everyone eyes on everyone else. It sounds like 24 or a movie thriller, but it’s potentially very messy indeed in real life.
