die@hydra.UUCP (Dave Emery) (09/20/85)
And apparently private is private.
I had occasion to hear Sen. Gore's legislative assistant who
wrote the changes to the communications act of 1934 that authorized reception
of unencrypted cable feeds at a seminar at MIT. It was quite clear from the
discussion that the mood in congress is to regard receiving any private radio
transmission as strictly illegal, including such almost public
things as network backhauls and the portions of network feeds to affiliates
that aren't meant to be put on the air. The general legal situation was
summed up: the satellite television viewing act created "a small and
very carefully defined exception" to an otherwise absolute prohibition
of reception of private communications. And further, the philosophical
justification was not that cable TV feeds were a special case
of private communications that could be made public because that served
a public good but rather that they were somehow not really private
because of their broadcast nature and wide public distribution.
It seems clear that Sen. Leahy and Rep. Kastenmeier, who have
filed a bill extending 2115 to cover most classes of radio transmission
other than broadcast (including cordless phones), reflect a powerful
sentiment in congress. It seems quite likely that receiving anything
other than broadcast transmissions intended for general use may soon
become major federal felonies. I have yet to take the time to read the text
of their bill so I do not know whether it applies just to point to
point or similar communications or whether it would apply to all non-
broadcast radio communications such as police, fire, news crews, aircraft,
ambulance and other such things so beloved of the millions of
Americans who own scanners. It definately extends protection to data
and record communications, however, and thereby closes that loophole in 2115.
I suspect that if a broad bill covering interception of almost
everything sent by radio becomes law this act will be another of
those unfortunate American laws that are enforced only at the discretion
of prosecuters and likely will be used more as a method of harrassing and
pressuring selected private citizens out of favor with the authorities
than as a real means of controlling private listening. I regard
such laws as very unfair because they are not uniformly or fairly
enforced. They encourage disrespect for the law by making an innately
private act that can never be effectively policed (and which
many millions of citizens practice and accept as their right) a crime, and
not only that but a crime which the law usually winks at.
After listening to the very economic arguments about scrambling
cable feeds, I've come to the conclusion that the gentleman who claimed
that it was cheaper to hire lawyers and lobbyists than buy cipher machines
is right. Unfortunately, however, real security is only obtained by
encryption. (I might add that the audio, data, and authorization side of
the M/A Com Videocipher II seems to be impressively well secured -
using DES, but the video is only lightly scrambled so watching pictures without
sound will no doubt become common).
I am sorry to say that everything I hear convinces me that
the very strong economic interests in protection of communications the
cheap way (laws) will no doubt force national policy in the direction
of draconian penalties rather than universal encryption. It is too bad
that this approach which is more PR than substance is being substituted
for a more effective cipher based one, but such is life...
David I. Emery Charles River Data Systems 617-626-1102
983 Concord St., Framingham, MA 01701.
uucp: decvax!frog!diedie@hydra.UUCP (Dave Emery) (09/20/85)
> > And apparently private is private. > And it is dangerous to post when expire is running - sorry about the double posting - but it looked like the first one failed, for a minute or two so I foolishly tried again... David I. Emery Charles River Data Systems 617-626-1102 983 Concord St., Framingham, MA 01701. uucp: decvax!frog!die