Bush blocks mobiles

The Register reports: [edited]

US President George Bush will be followed about by a helicopter which jams mobile phone signals during an upcoming visit to Australia, it has emerged.

According to reports in the Sydney Daily Telegraph, train stations will also be temporarily shut down and parts of the city will "become restricted areas".

Conjecture around the phone-jamming helicopter has arisen as a result of its appearance in attendance on Mr Bush at the 2005 APEC summit in South Korea. Reporters covering the conference said that a Black Hawk chopper would shadow the presidential motorcade, and as it passed overhead mobile phones would lose touch with the local network.

"Whenever Mr Bush visits a foreign country local sovereignty is surrendered to US authorities as he moves around in heavily armoured vehicles that follow him around the globe," said the Telegraph.

Jamming technology employed to prevent command-detonated bombs functioning is nothing new, of course. British infantrymen would carry man-portable jammers on patrol in Northern Ireland decades ago, and security geeks in London might note similar equipment (in smarter backpacks) occasionally being carried by guardsmen engaged in public ceremonies.
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