COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – South Carolina officials on Wednesday renewed their call for federal help in dealing with the dangers of cellphones behind prison walls, telling Federal Communications Commission officials they need permission to block cell signals altogether to keep both prison employees and the public at large safe.
“Every day and every night, I hold my breath,” Gov. Nikki Haley said during a hearing in Columbia with officials from the FCC and cellphone industry, saying she dreads getting a call that a cellphone-orchestrated prison riot has occurred.
At Haley’s invitation, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai spent the day in the state, gathering information in what Pai has said he hopes will be an effort to rejuvenate agency action on cellphones.
Haley and South Carolina prisons officials have long spoken of the dangers of cellphones, which are smuggled by the thousands into the state’s institutions. Officials say they’re thrown over fences inside hollowed out footballs, whisked in by corrupt employees or sometimes even dropped by drone.
Corrections Director Bryan Stirling and his predecessor, Jon Ozmint, have sought permission to jam cell signals at the state’s prisons, but a 1934 law says the FCC can grant permission to jam public airwaves only to federal agencies, not state or local ones.