nomdenet@ISI-VAXA.ARPA (Bert White) (06/18/86)
Strictly speaking, the article below shouldn't be here, but it seems relevant. Followups probably should go to telecom. Has anyone heard of the Senate Bill, S 1667, referred to below? From Alexander Cockburn's column "Ashes and Diamonds" in the Los Angeles Weekly, June 6-12, 1986. (C) 1986, Los Angeles Weekly, Inc. (The Weekly is a region-wide throw-away.) There are people in this world who buy a lot of expensive gear in electronics stores and then try to talk to astronauts or hear the news coming in and out of Air Force One. In both categories is to be found a 26-year-old fellow of my acquaintance named David Torres, a free- lance photojournalist who lives on the upper West Side of Manhattan a mile or so south of the George Washington Bridge. Among David's coups, which have made him a byword in the ham-radio world, was his triumph in talking from his lodgings to Owen Garriott (call letters W5LFL), an astronaut who was on that date (November 29, 1983) aboard the space shuttle Columbia. David also monitored President Reagan aboard Air Force One as Reagan gave the go-ahead to the Pentagon to intercept the plane taking off from Cairo with the hijackers of the Achille Lauro. (The scrambler aboard Air Force One was broken on that particular day.) More recently, Torres had an enjoyable time reviewing a long and rather desperate conversation between a secretary aboard Air Force One and an office temp in the White House Situation Room. There was, said the temp, a message for Reagan's eyes only. The woman on the plane told here the president wasn't there -- he'd gone off to the Waldorf. Eventually they decided that if the people in the Situation Room really thought it was urgent they'd contact Nancy and she could take it out to Andrews Air Force Base, where she was due to meet Ron before going off for the weekend to Camp David. [ ... irrelevant snide comment ...] This is the kind of thing that makes Torres' blood pulse faster. After the Reagan-to-Pentagon intercept he was visited by the Secret Service and the FBI, who asked him how he knew classified frequencies. Torres directed their attention to an informative book compiled by noted radio enthusiast Tom Kneitel (call letters KTAES [sic]) and published by CRB Research, P.O. Box 56, Commack, NY 11725. But Torres' pleasures may be short-lived. A bill now working its way through the Senate and the House (S 1667) would outlaw a scanner from listening to mobile phones, 800-MHz cellular telephones or frequencies from 151 to 153 MHz, any federal government transmission between 163 and 174 MHz, and the classified military band between 216 MHz and 420 MHz. Under the proposed bill (though the House Judiciary Committee will soon review a new draft), if you listen to these, you ae subject to a $5,000 fine, confiscation of equipment, six months in jail -- or all of the above. Torres is very mad about this, and I don't blame him. Scanners don't kill people, guns kill people. And look how nice Congress has been to the gun lobby. "They're trying to stuff plugs in our ears," Torres laments. "The present act says we can listen to any broadcasts as long as we don't interfere with TV broadcasts or tap in. I see nothing wrong in listening to anything over the airwaves unless the government has proof that I am using this to commit a crime, or blow up a building, or assassinate the president, or jump into the middle of a federal investigation." Chalk up another one for secrecy in the age of Reagan, even though the Senate sponsors are the "liberals" Leahy and Matthias. Liberals are always like that. It takes a libertarian to hold the line on such matters. Or a powerful network.