CHAPIN, S.C. (AP) — Federal officials on Friday said they are taking steps that will give state and federal prisons the right to jam the signals of cellphones smuggled to inmates, devices they argue allow prisoners to plot violence and carry out crimes.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said Friday during a news conference in Arkansas that his agency would vote at its Sept. 30 meeting on a proposal to lift a restriction in place that prohibits state and federal prisons from jamming signals of phones that prisoners aren’t allowed to have.

The debate over using technology to make the devices — often smuggled behind bars and even delivered over prison fences by drones and hollowed-out footballs — has been ongoing for years, with prison officials saying these actions allow inmates to run criminal en

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