Employee Fined $32,000 for Using a GPS Jammer

In an attempt to block his employer from tracking his work truck, New Jersey resident is fined $32,000 for using an illegal GPS jammer.

GPS jammers are illegal in the United States because of their ability to block important communications. And for one New Jersey man, the cost was much higher than he anticipated.

Gary Bojczak first got the jammer to block his employer from tracking his whereabouts during his work shift. The company he works for installed GPS tracking devices on all work trucks, including the one he was driving. They did this in order to monitor the trucks’ location and other data, and be sure company time was being used wisely.

Unfortunately for Bojczak, using the signal jammer device also blocked a nearby GPS system that was being used for the airport. At Newark Liberty International Airport, they were attempting to test a new GPS system for their plane routes. As Bojczak pulled up next to the airport on his route, their GPS system was jammed, which alerted the airport’s security team.

Security was able to trace the issue back to the Ford pickup truck that Bojczak was driving. They investigated the matter further, along with one of the agents from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

It didn’t take too long before Gary Bojczak, an engineer, had used a GPS jamming device to block communications from his truck’s GPS tracking system. He was then charged with interfering with authorized communications, since it is against the law in the U.S.

While they are against the law, it’s not unusual for people to get their hands on them.

There are several retailers online that sell the jammers, under assumed names. These same retailers also carry radar guns of which have the ability to detect when a jammer is currently being used.

These types of devices affect authorized communications and invade the rights of the general public, therefore making them unsafe to use. This is the primary reason for the FCC prohibiting the sale, distribution and use of such devices.

Among the many potential dangers of blocking GPS signals, jammers disrupt communications for public safety purposes, put lives in danger by getting in the way of 911 phone calls, affect fire fighters and law enforcement from doing their job correctly, and endanger people on boats or planes by sending fake signals.

In the case of Gary Bojczak, he was charged with the offense and received a $32,000 fine for obtaining and using the jamming device. The FCC considers the fact that they caught him in time lucky, because they have had many crossed signals due to jammers and never find their operators. There is no word on what the punishment was for Bojczak by his employer.

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