He Be Jammin’
This is a story that’s more than a week old but was brought to my attention by the tech blog Gizmodo.
A University of Wisconsin graduate student was sentenced to eight years in prison for jamming the radio frequencies of Madison’s emergency services.
Eight years, they gave him, for a series of disruptions between January and October of last year that included a 3 hour Halloween night disruption and a November 11th episode where pornographic sound files were played over the police band, causing most officers to turn down their radios when in earshot of the public. The guy sounds like a punk, but does 8 years in prison fit the crime? Disrupting emergency service is a serious screw up, but 8 years in the big house will ruin this kid’s life.
“My limited social skills will make it difficult to reintegrate into society,” he says. If these are the same limited social skills that led him to think endangering lives would make for a good practical joke, tough shit. 8 years seems right to me.
Dude, I’m 26. Last year? I was all about disrupting the police signals. It was a blow against, like, the system.
(Memo to people evaluating my visa application next year: um, not really.)
Well, the kid does have an appeal, and it sounds like there are grounds. It seems to me, though, that this kid really doesn’t deserve too much sympathy. Yeah, misguided youth, whatever, he’s 25 years old. Mr. Ruff is 25, does he go around disrupting police signals out of youthful ignorance? I’m only 22, I know not to do that kind of crap. Don’t commit crimes, I think, is the lesson here.