WTH? Jail breaking Unlocking your cell phone is now illegal...

How many lobbying dollars did it take to buy this travesty of justice?  If you unlock your cell phone software in order to use a different network, it is now a copyright violation. This is kind of like buying a car and having the vehicle manufacturer install a GPS device that only allows it to be driven on their toll roads. Then, the government makes it a crime to disable the GPS.You can still get a HTC G2 Vision Google Cellphone - Unlocked from Amazon.


Via Mail Online:

A new law that makes it illegal to 'unlock' your cell phone and switch carriers goes into effect today and will carry fines between $2,500 and $500,000, and in some cases, prison time.

The change made by the U.S. Copyright Office and Library of Congress to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act will make it illegal for consumers to unlock mobile devices without the permission of their carrier.

The lock feature on mobile devices essentially allows carriers a way to prevent customers from switching to a new plan with a different company. Unless your phone came unlocked and are grandfathered in under the law, you're device is legally chained to your service provider.[...]

Now, it is illegal to unlock a phone from a carrier unless you have that carrier's permission.

'It wasn't a good ruling,' Rebecca Jeschke, a digital rights analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), told ABC News. 'You should be able to unlock your phone. This law was meant to combat copyright infringement, not to prevent people to do what they want to do with the device they bought.' Keep on reading...