47CFR15.5(b) talks about transmit and receive. People intentionally mis-interpret the receive section as somehow referencing transmission. The transmit side is as follows: "Operation of an intentional ... radiator is subject to the conditions that no harmful interference is caused"
47CFR15.3(m) Harmful interference. Any emission ... that ... seriously degrades, obstructs or repeatedly interrupts a radiocommunications service operating in accordance with this chapter.
It is true that on the receive side you have no legal protection according to 15.5(b). However transmitting a jamming signal is quite illegal.
Its very strange, like imagine two laws, one says its illegal to shoot at people, the other says you have no legal protection if you stand in front of a bullet. Then everyone exclusively quotes the latter stating its perfectly legal to shoot people, despite the former explicitly prohibiting that specific act.
The FCC doesn't send men in black in vans when people interfere with aircraft navigation for fun or because they're nice guys, although they are, but because they're legally obligated to do so because those parts don't have "too bad so sad" written into the legal code. All the "you're screwed if you're interfered with" in part 15 means is the FCC is not legally obligated to send in the men in black suits and vans solely for part 15 complaint issues. It doesn't mean interference is legal under part 15 rules, in fact the line right next to it explicitly states it is not legal and if by some miracle you're caught you are in big trouble.
This could be similar to some type of wifi blackmail. I could rent an apartment in expensive complex and setup a wifi jammer. then approach tenants that i can turn it off for X amount per month.
using != jamming
Over in the ham space if you know you're causing interference you're required to back off, regardless of who was there first(excluding some emergency situations).
It's the difference between not being able to talk to someone because you're in a crowd and not being able to talk to them because someone is standing behind you screaming into your ear.
That said, I guess you'd have to see what those specific repeated rulings were and for example whether they were two neighbors bickering over a network or convention centers blocking all WiFi except their own.
If I use WIFI as it's intended there's no mens rea. If I misuse WIFI to block your access there is mens rea.
>But because of the shared, "commons" model that applies to all unlicensed operations, the Commission has >repeatedly held that "interference caused to a Part 15 device by another Part 15 device does not constitute >harmful interference."
In other words because the spectrum is unlicensed and because the transmissions were conformant with the part 15 spec, any such operation following the spec is allowed. How they can then they find that the Hotel was causing harmful interference is a bit troubling.
Clearly in everyday language we could describe what the hotel were doing as harmful, but the whole point of unlicensed spectrum is that it's a commons free-for-all. When wifi gets degraded to usability at trade shows because everyone's wifi is interfering with each other, nobody calls the FCC and files complaints about harmful interference.
Also it appears the FCC have been previously explicitly asked if deauth broadcasts like this are disallowed, and specifically chose not to make a ruling. It makes me wonder what the heck is going on over there. Has this issue become a political football between different factions over at the FCC?