Cell phone interference technologies developed during the Iraq war could be used against journalists reporting protests against the US political establishment.
While police and government surveillance of protests, including surveillance of cell phone use, is well documented, efforts to block signals during protests remain an often repeated but never proven rumor.
It may be impossible to definitively prove that the authorities are using “cell phone jammer” technology, but journalists working with both mainstream and independent media have reported during the recent protests outside the gates of the Democratic National Convention of unusual difficulties in accessing the internet could have real technology.
I experienced this personally during the protests outside the DNC that I reported for MintPress News, when my internet connection near the security fences and entrance gates to the convention was suspicious and my tweets and other messages were often abruptly blocked. The same was true for any other journalist I spoke to who reported on the protests.
“It scares me as a journalist because it is state suppression of events,” said Desiree Kane, a freelance journalist and direct action organizer who covered the Republican National Convention for MintPress and also participated in protests in Philadelphia.
“This is exactly how you block communication about what might go wrong,” she added.
“Everyone noticed on Tuesday evening”
Jon Ziegler, an experienced citizen journalist, spoke to me on July 28, the last day of the DNC. He remembered his shock at the apparent disruption to his service 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 beginning of the national Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011.
“I have streamed across the country. I have streamed in big cities and towns, in large crowds, and in every situation you can imagine,” he said.
He said it was important to distinguish between normal, everyday disturbances – for example, a temporary loss of signal from tall buildings during protests in downtown Philadelphia – and the seemingly deliberate interruptions that journalists are near the Wells Fargo Center, the location of the DNC in the south, experienced Philadelphia.
“You have data reception problems here and there, but they can always be remedied by yourself. In general, I can take some measures to get you up and running again very quickly.”
Shortly before he traveled to the convention, Ziegler upgraded his livestream equipment so that he could access a portable WiFi hotspot with AT&T via Verizon and another phone. This would enable him to switch between the two networks at any time. He also uses several live streaming apps that are connected to his Twitter account so that he can switch between apps in the event of interruptions.
“Here in Philadelphia, I’ve actually had the most opportunities to connect to the Internet and streaming services in the four years I’ve done this, and yet I’ve encountered most of the problems, especially further down the gate of the DNC than ever “.
Connection problems of varying severity occurred during the DNC week and were a frequent topic of conversation among journalists. “Monday night we talked about how strange it was, but on Tuesday evening everyone said,” Wait a second, that’s not right, “” said Ziegler.
“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.”
Regardless of the network operator and the live streaming app he uses, Ziegler was often blocked.
“Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the second we even get closer to these goals, my livestream becomes uncomfortable or fails completely, or you cannot connect to the Internet at all.”
Even mainstream media journalists have experienced traffic jams at DNC
My experiences matched 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. When using the Twitter app, it sometimes took more than an hour to publish non-multimedia tweets.