Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Jamming a menace - Police testify against man in federal trial

From: Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 2004 14:02:14 -0500

Jamming a menace - Police testify against man in federal trial

By Kevin Murphy
Correspondent for The Capital Times
March 2, 2004

Madison police officers said that not being able to
use their radios during last fall's Halloween
disruption on State Street prevented them from
calling for backup and arranging to move drunks to
jail.

They appeared in federal court Monday to testify
against a former University of Wisconsin graduate
student on trial in federal court for jamming police
emergency radios.

The government opened its case against Rajib
Mitra, 25, by calling officers who patrol State
Street, including Meredith York, who said, "The
radio is a tool more important than my handgun."

"If it isn't available, it totally affects my duties and
what I can do," York told Assistant U.S. Attorney
Tim O'Shea.

York said she patrols alone much of the time and
needs backup help with uncooperative drunks or
mentally ill people she encounters on the beat.

Radio interference occurred so often last summer
that she was issued a cellular phone, which she
called a poor substitute because it requires both
hands to use, unlike the portable radio and its
microphone she wears near the collar of her
uniform.

On Halloween, York patrolled with a partner, she
said, but radio interference again periodically
prevented her from talking to dispatch as she a
rrested rowdy people for public intoxication.

Madison police officer Matt Wentzel said that while he was talking to a
woman at a two-car accident on Stoughton Road last November, several
pornographic messages were transmitted from his portable radio within
earshot of the woman.
Although radio interference was sporadic throughout last year, police
claim that the pornographic transmissions on Nov. 11 were the first
solid indications that the interference was intentional.

Radio interference also plagued firefighters last year. Assistant Fire
Chief George Burke said that included instances when emergency medical
technicians couldn't communicate with hospitals.

Mitra won't dispute that police communications were disrupted and won't
avoid talking about his history of accessing police radio transmissions
or convictions for computer hacking.

Rather, his defense will be that he did not intend to interfere with
police communications, and any disruptions were accidental, said his
attorney, Christopher Van Wagner.

In questioning Burke, Van Wagner said that there have been more than
1,000 complaints about 800-megahertz radio systems like Madison's, and
some departments even quit using them due to excessive interference.

Burke admitted that the Motorola radios that EMTs carry don't work well
in the sub-basement of Meriter Hospital due to the amount of concrete
and steel in the building.

O'Shea called a few witnesses to suggest that problems with police radio
interference followed Mitra around last year. A Wauwatosa police
sergeant testified that he heard unusual interference while using his
department's Motorola radio system on Memorial Day weekend. O'Shea then
offered charge card records showing that Mitra's credit card was used to
pay for a car wash in Wauwatosa on Memorial Day weekend and thus he was
in that city then.

Motorola technician Clyde Gestle testified that he was called on
Memorial Day to fix problems with the Wauwatosa police radio system,
which he concluded could be intentional interference because such
problems wouldn't happen to a properly programmed and functioning
system.

Questioned by Van Wagner, Gestle admitted that he couldn't determine
what caused the radio to be temporarily jammed or where the problem
originated. But other than the interference Madison police radios
experienced last year, he had not heard of similar problems.

Although it is against federal regulations to transmit on police radio
frequencies, Gestle admitted that police radios can be purchased on
eBay, widening the scope of potential radio jammers.

Mitra, who has a bachelor's degree in computer science, also built a
device that could switch a traffic light from red to green, said Lisa
Albright, Mitra's roommate at 10 N.  Orchard St. last fall. Mitra seemed
to have more advanced computer skills than social skills, said Albright,
who testified that she had more conversations with him over the Internet
before they became roommates than after.

When he wasn't in school last fall, he spent most of his time in his
bedroom, some of it with his girlfriend, a 17-year-old Stevens Point
High School senior, Albright said.

Albright, majoring in bacteriology and taking EMT classes at MATC, said
she passed out early on Halloween night after drinking and only heard
later that Mitra went out that night with her friends.

Questioned by Van Wagner, Albright said she knew that Mitra had been
recruited for a computer job by the National Security Agency, and to her
knowledge Mitra had no deep-seated anger toward police. The device he
built to control traffic lights was done merely to see if it would work,
she told Van Wagner.

The trial is expected to continue another two to three days. If
convicted, Mitra faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

Published: 9:45 AM 3/02/04

http://www.madison.com/captimes/news/stories/69264.php
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