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Tilted Cat Head
Administrator
Location: Manhattan, NY
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the jammers are currently outlawed in the United States, and well your comment re: the frequencies, well it's my right to use them as I see fit as well since it's a natural resource and is regulated as such by the FCC.
they government does have that right to regulate and has:
Quote:
Hush-Hush Hooray, Says NYC By Elisa Batista
Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,54608,00.html
02:00 AM Aug. 17, 2002 PT
As much as New Yorkers love to talk, they appear to be inclined to support legislation that prohibits people from using their cell phones in public.
In what would be the first such ban in any U.S. city, New York City Councilman Philip Reed recently proposed legislation that prohibits the use of mobile phones in "places of public performance," such as movie theaters, art galleries and libraries. The bill makes an exception for emergency phone calls, but punishes people who infringe on the law with a $50 fine.
Reed's bill is gaining momentum and has a good chance of passing.
"It's a slam dunk," Reed said. "This is going to be a law."
Reed said that only one of 25 city council members he has pitched his bill to wouldn't support it. Even Council Speaker Gifford Miller is on board in support of the bill.
"This isn't a matter of Big Brother watching you on your cell phone," said Miller's spokeswoman, Lupe Todd. "It is a quality-of-life issue."
As Todd pointed out, cell-phone talkers have been received badly in theaters on Broadway. In the middle of one of his productions, Kevin Spacey turned to a person who answered a cell phone and said, "Tell them you're busy." Actor Laurence Fishburne, in the middle of a performance, yelled to a member of the audience, "Turn your fucking phone off!"
"To be honest, we haven't heard anyone say, 'Damn it, she has the right to use her phone in the theater even though I paid $90 for this ticket,'" Todd said. "We're confident that the people of New York will take this legislation in stride."
Members of the cell-phone industry expressed incredulity that the bill has been met with this much fanfare.
"There's more pressing issues in the city right now," said David Samberg, spokesman for Verizon Wireless. "The city's resources can be spent in much better ways than handing out $50 tickets to people with poor manners."
Kim Kuo, a spokeswoman for the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, said the industry preferred educating people on cell-phone etiquette than slapping them with fines. The industry opposes such laws for emergency reasons, she said.
"What he (Councilman Reed) said on CNN is that he wanted to take people's phones away," Kuo said. "What kind of disturbance would that result in -- New York, especially?"
Reed, however, isn't backing down. He compares his cell-phone bill with the city's anti-smoking campaign.
"Have the police been in the theater to tell people to stop smoking?" asked Reed.
Reed introduced the bill after experiencing the annoyance of a cell phone ringing in public. His friends, he said, have told him their fair share of anecdotes of rude cell-phone callers and hinted to him that he ought to introduce a bill.
He doesn't buy the story that people need the phones in a theater to report an emergency.
"Shut up and get up," he said. "Nobody is going to take you to jail if you put your phone on vibrate. Get your ass out of the seat and go to the lobby (to take the call). How complicated is that?"
Some New Yorkers share his pain.
Becky Saldana, manager at the Viva Tequila bar and restaurant in Manhattan, said she wouldn't mind seeing the ban extended to restaurants.
"Cell phones should be used in the street, not in a place where people are trying to relax or have a nice dinner," Saldana said. "If they want to use the cell phone they should leave the premises and go where no one can listen to their conversation."
Gian Luca, a manager at the F. Illi Ponte Ristorante in Manhattan, said he wouldn't mind seeing a restaurant ban on ringing cell phones and those "Nextel phones that work as walkie-talkies."
"It's not so much the conversation over the phone, but the ringing," Luca said. "The conversation goes on over the table, regardless. As long as they keep it to a regular volume, that's OK with me."
CTIA's Kuo said she doesn't know of any cities in the country that prohibit cell-phone use in public places. New York would be the first city to consider it, she said.
New York is the only state in the country to prohibit cell-phone use while driving. About 300 towns and cities across the country have similar bans.
Abroad, residents of the city of Campinas, Brazil, are regularly yanked out of their movie seats, escorted out of libraries or barred from classrooms if their cell phones ring. People who infringe on the city's no-cell-phone rule are fined up to $135.
A hearing on Reed's bill is likely to be heard in September, Reed said. Reed's bill could become law as early as November, he said.
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__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.
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