New Bills Aim to Ban Cell Calls In Flight → 1st amendment?

So this bill isn't the same as banning cell phone use by a car driver, as that person is operating a vehicle.

Couldn't Congress be setting themselves up for a 1st amendment challenge to this by making such a nanny law if it were to pass and be signed? Since there is no safety reason to stop it, as the FAA cleared it, and no technical reason to stop it, since the FCC cleared it.

Let the airlines decide on their own. If you want to talk on a phone, fly on airline X, if you don't, fly on another airline.

That's the first thing I thought of. If the airlines do it, there is no First Amendment argument. But if the gov't does it, maybe there is. Better to let the airlines ban such use, just as movie theaters do.

Sure seems there is way more of a safety hazard with someone operating a moving two ton vehicle down the road than sitting in a seat on an airplane while someone else controls it. And since data is allowed and most airlines allow that...you can just put a VoIP app on your phone and make the call anyway. It's not cellular so it pretty much nullifies the law unless they just want to stop the actual conversation from taking place which very much sets it up for 1st Amendment since the government cannot stop free speech.

Regardless of who bans it, I think it's going to be sticky because they will have to differentiate why discriminating against a phone conversation is different than a two-passenger conversation.

Well hopefully they will word the bill appropriately so that any voice application is banned as well.