Brazil's government plans to submit a bill for a law forcing mobile operators to install equipment that will block signals inside prisons, Brazilian newspapers quoted communications minister Hélio Costa as saying.
There was a slight delay in taking this decision as ministers discussed whether it should be the responsibility of the operators to purchase and install the blocking devices.
Costa finally decided this was the best way, in an agreement with the justice minister Márcio Thomaz Bastos and representatives of local mobile phone companies on May 17.
The forthcoming presidential decree or provisional measures will detail other actions to block communications by prisoners, according to Bastos, and the legislation will not specify how companies will do this. They can use blocking devices or dismantle transmission antennas, local newspaper Gazeta Mercantil quoted him as saying.
The same day, following a wave of unprecedented violence over the weekend in São Paulo, a court in the state ordered the mobile operators to shut down their base stations for at least 20 days in six cities within São Paulo state, newspapers reported.
Judge Alex Tadeu Monteiro Zilenovski gave the operators 48 hours to do this, aware that the measure will prevent local residents and companies in the area from using their cell phones, as well as inmates of local prisons.
EMERGENCY MEETING
Local operators Vivo, Claro, TIM and Nextel were scheduled to meet on Thursday with Brazil's telecoms regulator Anatel to discuss technical ways of stopping the use of cell phones in prisons.
The companies are likely to be compensated for the cost of such measures. "There are various ways of compensating them, such as adjusting contracts or reducing taxes," news service InvestNews quoted Bastos as saying.
Leaders of a notorious criminal gang First Command of the Capital, known as PCC, are said to have used mobile phones to coordinate violent operations from inside prisons.
São Paulo has seen the worst violence in the state's history since the attacks started on Friday, with buses torched, police stations blasted with grenades and over 140 dead, mainly police, gang members and prisoners.
Before the outbreak of violence, a Brazilian weekly magazine Veja reported that prisoners possessed phones and used them to run illegal operations or phone scams. Various states have looked at blocking signals in prisons in recent years.
BNamericas.com"
Posted to the site on 19th May 2006
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/17457.php