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Unlocking Your Cell Phone Is Legal Again

To "protect competition in the wireless marketplace."

On Friday, President Barack Obama signed a bill into law which makes it legal again to unlock a cellphone without permission from a wireless provider—as long as your service contract has expired. “Our laws should not prohibit consumers from carrying their cellphones to a new network, and we should promote and protect competition in the wireless marketplace,” said bill co-sponsor and Judiciary Committee chairman Senator Patrick Leahy. The law, which reverses the effect of another copyright law that prohibited the breaking of digital locks on technological devices, does not apply to tablets, but advises the Library of Congress to review whether those should be able to be unlocked as well.