Mobile phone disruption technologies developed during the Iraq war could be used against journalists reporting protests against the US political establishment.
While policing and government monitoring of protests, including mobile phone monitoring, is well documented, efforts to block signals during protests remain an oft-repeated, but unproven rumor.
It may not be possible to prove definitively that the authorities use “cell phone jammer” technology, but journalists working with both mainstream media and independent media reported outside the Democratic National Convention during the recent protests of unusual difficulties in accessing the Internet could have real technology.
During the protests outside the DNC that I reported on for MintPress News, I experienced it in person when my internet connection near the convent’s security fences and entrance gates was suspicious and often blocked my tweets and other messages abruptly. The same was true of every other journalist I spoke to and who talked about the protests.
“For me as a journalist, it’s scary because it’s the state repression of events,” said Desiree Kane, a freelance journalist and direct action organizer who reported on the MintPress Republican National Convention and also participated in protests in Philadelphia.
“That’s how you block communication about what’s likely to happen,” she added.
Jon Ziegler, an experienced citizen journalist, spoke to me on July 28, the last day of the DNC. He recalled his shock at the apparent disruption of his ministry during the events of the past few days.
Ziegler, who is live on several social networks under the name @Rebelutionary_Z and supports his work through crowdfunding, reports on protests and activities that have taken place in Philadelphia since the inception of the national Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011.
“I’ve been streaming across the country, streaming in big cities and small towns, in big crowds and in every situation you can imagine,” he said.
He said it was important to distinguish between everyday, everyday disruption – such as a temporary loss of high building signal during protest in downtown Philadelphia – and the seemingly deliberate interruptions that journalists are having near the Wells Fargo Center, the site of the DNC in the south, Philadelphia experienced.
“You have data reception problems here and there, but they always resolve themselves, and I can usually take some action to get them back up and running very quickly.”
Just before he traveled to the convention, Ziegler set up his livestream equipment so he could access AT & T via Verizon and another phone to a portable Wi-Fi hotspot. This would allow him to switch between the two networks at any time. He also uses multiple live streaming apps connected to his Twitter account so he can switch between apps when there are breaks.
“Here in Philadelphia, in the four years that I’ve done that, I actually had the most opportunities to connect to the Internet and streaming services, and yet I’ve encountered most of the problems, especially down the gate DNC than ever before “.
During the DNC week, connection problems of varying severity occurred and were a frequent topic of conversation among journalists. “Monday night we talked about how strange it was, but on Tuesday night everybody noticed,” Hold on, that’s not right, “Ziegler said.
“Sometimes it was impossible to just send tweets,” he continued. “Heaven prohibits you from uploading a video or photo, but sometimes even text tweets are impossible to get out of.”
Regardless of the network operator and the livestreaming app he used, Ziegler was often blocked.
“Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the second we even approach these gates, my livestream becomes uncomfortable or fails completely, or you can not connect to the Internet at all.”
Even mainstream media journalists have experienced congestion at DNC
My experiences were consistent with those of Ziegler. For the first time in years, I sometimes had to rely on Twitter’s outdated SMS gateway to send the simplest tweets via SMS. Using the Twitter app sometimes took more than an hour to publish non-multimedia tweets.