In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, reports surfaced that the government had shut down cellphone networks in the area to deter anyone from using that technology from exploding other devices remotely. The story sounded fishy to me at the time, and later proved to be false. Today on my America Weekend show, I asked NYU senior research fellow Anthony Townsend if it’s even possible for the government to do that, or if it was just the system getting clogged up by so many people trying to make emergency calls at the same time.
Listen to our conversation here.