CNN has an article good for some comic relief. A pigeon that authorities caught in Colombia was smuggling cell phone parts into a prison. According to CNN:
The bird was carrying the contraband on its back in a little suitcase, the Caracol news outlet said Monday. Heavy rains prevented the plumed smuggler from entering the prison in north central Colombia, said the police chief in Boyaca state, Juan Carlos Polania.
Authorities are worried, Polania said, because this is a newly discovered way of smuggling goods into the prison, and officials have no way of combating it. They also are wondering whether any of the many pigeons that live in or near the prison are pulling double duty.
As for the miscreant bird, he was taken to an animal shelter in the city of Soraca.
At least give the pigeon's owner some credit for creativity, but even after the parts are assembled, the cell phone has to work, and lately there's been a rush to jam the signals in U.S. jails. Check out this article from WJBF television in Augusta, Georgia. It has an included video that didn't work for me, but maybe you'll hit it lucky.
The FCC frowns on jamming. They nixed a test of the idea recently in Washington, D.C. – and there's been a push to legislate an exception. Cell carriers don't like jamming, either, even if the jamming devices can be shown not to affect reception outside the prison. That's probably because jailed crooks buy lots of lucrative prepaid phone minutes to run their criminal activities. Or maybe they just steal them?
