On the phonejammer website, you can buy a device (at prices ranging from about $240 to $4000) that will jam the signals of any cell phones in your vicinity. Why would you do this? You probably know why, but here is the site's argument…

Provides Acoustics Isolation.

A phone jammer provides the ultimate solution in any area where cellular communications frequently cause nuisance either by loud incoming call rings or resulting loud telephone conversations. Examples of places where cell phones can be disruptive include:

. Public Transport    (trains, busses, etc.)
. Theatres    (movie theatres, concert halls, playhouses, opera houses, etc.)
. Lecture rooms
. Libraries
. Museums
. Restaurants
. Schools and  Universities (classrooms, lecture halls, auditoriums, etc.) cell phone hammers can prevent students from SMS cheating.
. Places of   Worship (mosques, shrines, churches, temples, etc.)

All of these places are indeed areas where someone talking loudly on a cell phone can be rude, disruptive, inconsiderate and annoying. All of them are also places where there may be legitimate reasons for someone taking or making a call, such as a true personal, business or national security emergency. The user of the phonejammer doesn't care, apparently, if the missed call results in an elderly person failing to contact a critical caretaker, or an expectant mother not reaching her husband to tell him it's time to go to the hospital, or a member of the National Security Counsel not getting notified about a terrorist attack. The wielder of a phonejammer is just upset at the intrusion on his solitude, and thus feels justified in subjugating another's perhaps legitimate needs to his own desires. This is one reason, and a good one, why jamming cell phones is illegal, which makes the website encouraging such a banned activity per se unethical.

But matters of legality aside, and even if the phonejammer is used only to silence the cells of jabbering clods during movies or self-important executive suite jerks in nice restaurants, the conduct is dead wrong and ethically offensive in many ways. For example:

• It is unfair. The user of the jammer knows who is annoying him, but the person who has his phone jammed doesn't know who is responsible. He can't object or explain why the call might be important or necessary.
• For the same reason---anonymity---the conduct is cowardly. It avoids responsibility and accountability, a particularly obnoxious offense when one is imposing one's will on another.
• It relies on a series of invalid rationalizations for justification, including "Two wrongs make a right," "Someone who misbehaves doesn't deserve fair treatment," and "If I do it, it must be ethical because I am ethical."

And these apply to the most excusable use of the phonejammer. Imagine the misuse this product can cause, and don't think for a moment that the marketers of the phonejammer don't know (and hope) that their product will be bought by people with nothing but mischief on their minds. One jammer recently wrote in a product review appearing on a website called DealExtreme, "Just watching those dumb teens at the mall get their calls dropped is worth it. Can you hear me now? NO? Good!" A phonejammer could also interfere with 911 calls in robberies or muggings. Increasing numbers of private residences only use cell phones now; the phonejammer will provide this generation's equivalent of cutting the phone lines.

"But," the defenders of phonejammers will doubtlessly argue, "the people who use their phones in public places are inconsiderate jerks!" Indeed they are, just like the loud talkers in movies and plays as well as drivers who crank up their stereos to earsplitting volume with their windows open. But the way to stop, chasten and reform inconsiderate jerks is not to become one. The ethical response to is to confront the individual directly, honestly and openly. Get help if necessary; be prepared to complain to others or publicly embarrass the talkers if they refuse to be considerate or reasonable. This is everyone's responsibility who wants to live in a caring and considerate culture, and if enough of us do our duty, abusers will get the message.

Are you afraid? I understand: get over it. Fear becomes a convenient excuse for passive acceptance and reinforcement of unacceptable conduct, and it also becomes a habit. Courage is an enabling virtues for ethical behavior; fear and cowardice, like laziness, apathy, and cynicism, undermine ethics. Living in a society includes the occasional obligation to confront wrong-doers, express disapproval, and reinforce legitimate cultural values by saying no. If you can't do this alone, look for assistance. But anonymous technological meddling is not an ethical option.

The phomejammer's promoters justify its illegal and cowardly product as the solution to the problem of rude cell phone users. In fact, it just makes more serious problems---epidemic lack of respect, and selfish disregard of the needs of others, and erosion of the skills required to create a civil society---worse.