From idm-owner@hyperreal.com Wed Sep 28 10:09:50 1994
From: JT <jmilhoan@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: Re: Re: FSOL/e-mail addresses/Scanner
To: idm@hyperreal.com
Sender: owner-idm@hyperreal.com
> >NOSY) citizen and given to the police. The court ruled that cordless
> >phone conversations were _not_ protected by the right to privacy (I seem
> >to recall that there was a big uproar about this). Besides, the UK has
By law in the US, monitoring cordless phones (those in the home in the
40-something MHz band) is LEGAL. Monitoring the cellular band
(800+MHz band) is ILLEGAL. Just listening to it can get you busted.
Many radio manufacturers try to avoid trouble by preventing reception
of the 800 MHz band without mods, but then they go and publish the
mods, which usually involve cutting a diode or pathway. Some
manufacturers don't bother with this, and even still, there is
legislature trying to prevent the reception even if the radio has to
be modified... which, uh, kinda eliminates some TVs that can be fine
tuned in the UHF range. ;)
This is essentially US law, but there are a couple of refinements.
A lot of old scanners belong to members of the public and I believe
that they were grandfathered in, i.e. not confiscated. It is now
illegal to manufacture and sell scanners. To handle the situation
of the old scanners, it is legal for the owner to use them under
some circumstances, but they can't legally share the information
with anyone else. Basically with electronic communications, at the
very least, you can't share it, but unless you are sure otherwise,
don't even bother listening.
An important telecommunications bill was killed in the US Senate by a
combination of special interests objecting to funding provisions and
Republican obstruction of other legislation (filibustering election
finance reform). It had some good and interesting safeguards of
privacy of electronic information such as protecting bank card PINs
and transaction codes. These safeguards had been endorsed by the EFF.
Alan.