Fight the mobile phone invasion at 30,000ft

Financial Times ^ | 3/28/2006 | Jagdish Bhagwati

[tellw]

Our right to peace and quiet is guaranteed by fining taxi drivers from India who honk as they drive: a habit acquired through years of dodging cycles, cows, cars and the carefree in the crowded streets of Calcutta and Karachi. Flights are not allowed to land in Washington DC beyond late evening so that those living around the airport enjoy what is now widely regarded as the human right to undisturbed sleep. Yet, noise pollution, practised with abandon in your face and in your ears, is tolerated in enclosed spaces in buses, trains, restaurants and cinemas and is spreading like bird flu, only more surely and more harmfully to our peace of mind and mental health.

The final straw in the US (followed, presumably, by everywhere else in rapid sequence) is the impending decision to allow the use of mobile phones on flights. In this way, loud passengers will be free to jabber away in a closed cabin, saying “hi” to Joey, Joel and Josie at home just for the heck of it, or conducting their business, which is no concern of yours, by public declamation. What can be done if the US Federal Aviation Administration allows this madness to happen, as it will? I say: we are not out of remedies.

Consider what you can do in the aircraft cabin itself. Before the Good Samaritans came down on smoking, I had a friend who was so annoyed by the smoke getting into his eyes in restaurants – as the smokers at the next table held their cigarette in a Marlene Dietrich gesture, almost under his nose – that he carried a little Sanyo fan that would blow the smoke back into their startled faces. While the stewardesses would not let you turn on a CD player at loud volume to drown out the mobile phone users, how about screaming into your own phone (without, of course, actually dialling and paying) sweet nothings to an imaginary girlfriend or boyfriend? This is worth a try. But frankly, how long and how often can such ridicule and retaliatory noise-making be sustained, without unleashing a competition in steadily higher octaves, one which the vulgar freaks you are trying to drown out are likely to win?

A more effective remedy has to be a collective, legal response. How about encouraging environmental and human rights groups to file lawsuits against the agencies that grant the permission for the use of mobile phones in flight, and against the airlines when they act on such permission? The American Association of Retired Persons might be convinced to join such a class action, in defence of the peaceful journeys sought by the increasing numbers of senior citizens taking discounted vacations from the rich countries.

The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms, under Article 8, guarantees that “everyone has the right to respect for his private . . . life” and “there shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as in accordance with the law and necessary . . . in the interests of . . . the economic well-being of the country”. Surely, the “private life” includes a life of peace in which one can snooze without the gaggle of gratuitous talk that certainly does not advance any country’s economic well-being.

But what of the rights of the mobile phone users? These are more frivolous than those of the fellow passengers on whom they impose. Besides, the airlines can readily accommodate their desire to talk without imposing on those who seek a quiet flight. Mobile phone users should be provided, at an extra cost charged to their tickets, with a phone booth at which they can queue for their turn. That would protect their rights without invading ours.

The smoking ban on all flights came along when the science behind the problem of secondary harm from smoking became well-established. But this harm does not have to be physical; it can also be mental. The stress of having to be in an enclosed space with continuous noise is sufficient to produce high blood pressure, fatigue and other ailments, as the plaintiffs complained in their testimony regarding airport noise in Hatton and Others v The United Kingdom at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in 2001. It is still not completely clear whether continual emission of radiation from the use of mobile phones on flights could cause secondary brain damage to fellow passengers. If providence were just, it would surely affect the brains of the users. But who believed at first that cigarettes could hurt the smoker’s own family?

So, perhaps the compelling answer may be to threaten the mobile phone companies themselves with ultimate liability, reminding them of the cigarette manufacturers who eventually faced huge financial damages. Eventual retribution could be the most powerful deterrent to the rising spectre of cellular noise.

The writer, university professor, economics and law, at Columbia University and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is the author of In Defense of Globalization

Do you agree with the author? Share your views online at www.ft.com/bhagwati

[PeterFinn]

I've decided to launch a website dedicated to publishing the intimate details of cell phone conversations overheard in public. I will include and and all credit card numbers, unpublished telephone numbers, trade secrets, and what room people are meeting their mister or mistress in at the airport hotel. As long as the information is publicly announced as a part of a loud conversation the speaker should have no expectation of privacy. This ought to be fun.

[NJ_gent]

"I've always been told that cellphones and wireless devices mess up the airplanes electronics. How come, all of a sudden, it's going to be OK?"

Because it was never a problem in the first place? Think about it for a whole three seconds: would you really trust your life to a machine that's launching you 30,000 ft into the air, but which will come crashing down when an extremely low-powered RF transmitter is activated? Your cell phone is safe enough to stick next to your ear 6 hours a day, but it'll mess up avionics 50 feet away with sheet metal and various other obstructions and shielding between you and it? Your cell phone isn't a 30 megawatt transmitter, and it's not going to cause any problems with any plane.

The only problem I'm aware of is that you're traveling so fast that if you were able to talk to cell towers, you'd be talking to several simultaneously, tying up enormouse resources for a single cell user. In that case, it would seem to be more of an FCC issue than an FAA or TSA problem.

[AxelPaulsenJr]

Yes Operator, my calling card number is 555-1234.

[NJ_gent]

I think what they're going to find when they start doing this sort of thing is people smuggling cell phone jammers on airplanes. Now, without even getting into the problems associated with having groups of people attempting to smuggle anything on board an airplane, let's consider that despite the propaganda regarding cell phones interferring with planes, cell phone jammers very well could cause serious problems. That, in and of itself, should be reason enough for airlines to reconsider allowing voice communications on their aircraft. What I would like to see, however, is an attempt made to get data networks (EDGE, EVDO, etc) working on airplanes. That would supply no new noise while providing many (like me) fantastic new access to work stuff.

[stuartcr]

I realise all that...I was just doing some freelance advocacy work for the guy downstairs with the pitchfork. I do this sometimes when I'm bored.

[JayNorth]

I'm more annoyed by people using the "walkie-talkie" features on their cell phones in public.

I was with my young children in an enclosed area and some doofus listens to his voicemail in "walkie-talkie" (concert-level speakerphone) mode. His messages all consisted of his loser friends from last night checking in as to how drunk he had been, what female he left with and what were their nocturnal activities, and had he found his car yet, all with the obligatory "f" word evenly spaced between each non-"f"-word.

[PeterFinn]

BINGO!!!!

[MineralMan]

Yuk!

[Publius6961]

What a freak this guy is. He's been in his ivory tower way too long.

I kind of like him.
Of course, if the FAA simply allowed other passengers to beat loud phone users to a pulp, that would also work for me.