Last updated April 12, 2019
A ‘vigilante cell phone jammer’ fed up of people talking loudly on their new and old cell phones used a jammer to make his bus trip just that bit quieter. The man, who has been identified only as Eric, was a regular passenger on one of the Philadelphia Southeastern Pennsylvania Transport Authority buses. He became so irritated by his fellow passengers talking loudly on their cell phones that he bought himself a cell phone jamming device and started to turn it on whenever their chattering began to get on his nerves during the journey.
Eric was caught in the act recently by NBC10 but he was far from intimidated by being sprung. “I guess I’m taking the law into my own hands and frankly, I’m proud of it,” he told NBC10 investigators who challenged him. “A lot of people are extremely loud, no sense of just privacy or anything. When it becomes a bother, that’s when I screw on the antenna and flip the switch.”
However, despite Eric’s belief that “it’s more of a grey area”, cell phone jammers are illegal, and the man later said that he had disposed of the device after discovering this. Nonetheless, a great many people would no doubt have sympathy with someone who just wanted to ride the bus without having to listen to the incessant chatter of those around him.