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Showing Original Post only (View all)California Senate OKs requiring 'kill switches' on cellphones [View all]
Source: LA Times
The state Senate on Thursday approved a measure requiring cellphones sold in California to be equipped with kill switches that make them inoperable if stolen.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and other law enforcement officials backed the legislation as a way to reduce robberies, many of them violent, in which thieves take smartphones to resell them.
We have a crime wave sweeping our state, Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) told his colleagues. We are trying to keep our constituents safe on their streets and in their neighborhoods.
The bill had previously failed in a Senate vote, but Leno agreed to change it to exclude electronic tablets and to delay the date by which phones must be made with kill switches -- from Jan. 1 2015, to July 1 of that year. Those changes resulted in Apple and Microsoft dropping their opposition to the measure, but others in the industry remain against SB 962.
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/local/political/la-me-pc-calif-senate-cellphones-kill-switches-20140508-story.html