Last May U.S. District Judge John Shabaz sentenced a former University of Wisconsin student to eight years in federal prison for interfering with the radio frequencies of the Madison, Wisconsin, Police Department from January to November of last year. Rajib Mitra was also ordered to complete three years of probation and make pay over $6,000 in restitution to the Madison Police Department.

            Chris Van Wagner, Mitra’s attorney, had argued that the harsher penalties under the revised federal sentencing guidelines that took effect at midnight on November 1, 2003 – one day after some of the most significant interferences in the case and the date of the earliest charged offense – were drafted to punish domestic terrorists, not college students like Mitra. Judge Shabaz also increased the sentence for what he believed was Mitra’s lying in court.

            Mitra was indicted by a Grand Jury in November of 2003 on two counts of committing computer crimes on October 31 and November 1, 2003. Specifically, he was charged with knowingly causing a transmission to a protected computer, the Madison Emergency Radio system, a Motorola Smartnet II trunked radio system, and that as result of his conduct he intentionally caused damage which affected a computer system and/or resulted in a threat to public safety in violation of Title 18 United States Code, Section 1030, et seq.

            Although the case was investigated for months by the local authorities, it was the federal government that stepped in after an arrest was made to take credit for the case. FBI agents were only assigned after Madison Police Detective Cynthia Murphy, who was the lead investigator on the radio interference case, obtained enough evidence to get a search warrant for Mitra’s apartment.

            Then in an unusual move for a criminal case, one month before the trial began, Motorola intervened and sought to keep both their employees' and Mitra’s testimony secret. Mitra’s attorney argued successfully that such a move would deny his client a right to a fair and public trial guaranteed by the Constitution. It would also prejudice the jury against his client, Van Wagner argued. In a motion filed in federal court, Motorola asked the Judge to close the public portions of testimony in the case. As in the government’s case, the motion seemed to be supported by fears of terrorism, although Motorola’s spokesman Steve Gorecki was quoted as saying that Motorola was seeking to protect its technology and he discounted the link to terrorism.

             Motorola argued in its brief in support of the motion to close the proceedings to the public that “[A]ccess to the confidential information sought by the United States in this action will enable would-be copycats, hackers and even terrorists to access and disable the communications systems used by more than 8,000 first responder systems worldwide, including the city of Madison Police Department."

            Testimony by Mitra and several Motorola employees could disclose sensitive information that could be used by others to "endanger public safety and risk the lives of law enforcement officers," Motorola went on to say. The company also expressed concerns that the testimony would disclose proprietary trade secrets. Disclosure of technical information about the Motorola radio system would place the company "at a distinct competitive disadvantage," a Motorola systems engineer wrote to the court.

            "While Motorola has developed proprietary systems to ensure the security and confidentiality of radio systems, such as the Smartlink II …, these systems unfortunately are not completely impervious to disruption or monitoring by determined hackers," Motorola said. Motorola was concerned that if others learn how Mitra disrupted the radio system, "it is clear that large-scale chaos could quickly ensue, given the widespread use of such systems by first responders."

            A federal jury found Mitra guilty in March of interfering with emergency communications last Halloween in Madison, Wisconsin. At his sentencing, Judge Shabaz said the government’s evidence showed Mitra also caused 20-30 instances of interference on over a dozen dates starting in January 2003. In calculating Mitra’s sentence, the judge ruled that the police communication system here qualified as “a critical infrastructure” under the new guidelines, an issue that the jury may have wrestled with, in light of questions they posed during their more than six hours of deliberations.

Critical Infrastructure Defined

            The issue of whether the police radio system was a critical infrastructure and whether the interference by Mitra was intentional and substantial both are to be appealed to the U.S. Seventh Circuit in these first interpretations of certain provisions of the Patriot Act. Mitra’s appeal is being handled by attorney Lew Wasserman.

            During the trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim O'Shea labeled Mitra a "domestic terrorist" because of the attack's target – the Madison Police Department – and the number of attacks. Mitra knocked out police radio transmissions, O’Shea said, by broadcasting a tone on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 of last year on the trunked radio system's control channels. He also broadcast sex sound clips that the government said he had found and downloaded from the Internet. On November 11^th local police tracked the interference to the city block that Mitra's apartment was in and arrested him a few days later.

            At trial, Mitra testified the Nov. 11 transmissions had to have been accidental transmissions that occurred when two wires rubbed against themselves in the radio. The sex sounds, he explained were broadcast because he was listening to them over and over in his apartment. When he heard those same sounds on his police scanner, he realized what had happened and threw his Motorola radio away.