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Comment by Kenji | Hacker News Reader

"In addition, we reiterate that Federal law prohibits the operation, marketing, or sale of any type of jamming equipment, including devices that interfere with Wi-Fi, cellular, or public safety communications."

Can't every device that has an appropriate antenna be a potential jamming device? What a weird law.

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In law, intention matters. Capable of being modified to do so and marketed to do so are very different in the eyes of the law.

Thank you. This kind of legal blindness gets annoying around here.

Hey, don't be angry about my ignorance, it was genuine curiosity. I have little knowledge about law, but I've never seen a law in our country that could criminalize the entire population depending on how you interpret it.

If you want to know more, check out "Three Felonies a Day" by Harvey Silvergate[1]. (I don't necessarily agree with his take on everything, but it's still eye opening and worth a read.)

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/...

Please don't. If you study the cases he cites in detail (ie by reading the verdicts or appeals) you'll find that he leaves out all sorts of critical information - not surprising, since many of the cases he talks about are ones where he represented the defendant. He's a bullshit artist. You are almost certainly not committing three felonies a day.

> I've never seen a law in our country that could criminalize the entire population depending on how you interpret it.

Where the hell do you live and how can I get there?

Every electronics device goes through an FCC certification-testing to allay the concern you bring up here. There is no legal quagmire here. It's a well established process for decades

> Can't every device that has an appropriate antenna be a potential jamming device?

The law doesn't prohibit potential jamming devices, only actual jamming devices. If you market or sell it as a jamming device, or operate it as a jamming device, you break the law.

I don't think so. If I understand it right, devices need to be unable to interfere with each other as well as withstand a certain amount of noise. Add that you'd have to modify many devices and electronics to drive them to be jammers (ie your cellphone won't be able to jam cell towers), most of the time there shouldn't be much worry about it.

But yeah, if you take a microwave and remove the grill from the front to break electronics on the other side of a wall, you're breaking the law. If it's only your stuff being broken, you won't be prosecuted. Put one in a car and aim it at people on cell phones and you'll eventually be caught and punished.

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