Minnesota senator plans bill to make cellphone unlocking legal again

Just one day after the White House got behind efforts to make unlocking cellphones legal again, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D — MN) vowed to introduce a bill this week that will “get rid of the ban on unlocking cell phones.” Both Klobuchar and the White House were responding directly to an online petition that urged the government to reverse a decision made by the Librarian of Congress last fall to deny consumers the right to unlock their phones and bring them to different carriers. In announcing her new legislation, Klobuchar said that “consumers should be free to choose the phone and service that best fits their needs and their budgets” and that “we need to make sure consumers are getting a fair deal and today’s announcement is a welcome step towards implementing consumer-friendly policies in the wireless industry.”