die@frog.UUCP (Dave Emery) (01/14/88)
cases) under the provisions of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 to listen to (intercept) certain radio communications. Does anyone out there know if there have been any actual criminal investigations, arrests, prosecutions, convictions, fines or jail sentences, or administrative actions such as FCC license revocations for violations of the radio privacy provisions of this new law ? In particular have there been any actual court interpretations of the its confusing and peculiar distinctions between different types of radio signals (and different penalties for intercepting them) ? It was widely reported at the time the law was passed that the justice department did not intend to prosecute anyone for violations of the law unless they were doing so for a clearly criminal purpose (EG such obviously criminal activities as intercepting microwave telephone calls from stores to credit authorization centers to steal credit card numbers would be prosecuted, but merely tuning around that spectrum to see what was there would not be). Has this policy changed or is it likely to change with a new administration in Washington ? If there have been any prosecutions at all, have any of them been of private individuals (hams/swls/rf hackers) for listening to radio or satellite communications in the privacy of their homes motivated entirely by curiosity about what is out there and/or by the technical challenge of receiving and demodulating the signal and without any criminal purpose whatsoever ? I suspect that a reasonable large percentage of readers of rec.ham-radio have technically violated the law in this spirit (as the widespread interest in cutting D513 to enable cellular coverage in the PRO-2004 indicates); even though hams are notoriously law abiding I suspect many feel the law is unenforcable or are simply ignorant of its fierce provisions since it has been so very little publicized. If anybody out there knows of specific court cases it would very valuable if they could post that information to the net - as many questions remain about what this seemingly unenforcable law actually means in a practical sense to those of us who peer at the rf spectrum as a part of our hobby. -- ---- David I. Emery Charles River Data Systems 983 Concord St. Framingham, MA 01701 Tel: (617) 626-1102 uucp: ...!decvax!frog!die
turpin@ut-sally.UUCP (Russell Turpin) (01/14/88)
In article <1999@frog.UUCP>, die@frog.UUCP (Dave Emery) writes: It has now been a year that it has been illegal (a felony in many > cases) under the provisions of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of > 1986 to listen to (intercept) certain radio communications. This is a terrible law. If they do not want me to receive them, they ought to keep their radio waves out of my back yard. If they don't want me to understand them, they ought to encrypt their communication. If I figure out what it says, it wasn't truly encrypted. Russell
die@frog.UUCP (Dave Emery) (01/14/88)
(Sorry for repeat - previous post of this was trunctated) It has now been one year since it became illegal (a felony in many circumstances) under the provisions of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 to listen to (intercept) certain radio communications. Does anyone out there know if there have been any actual criminal investigations, arrests, prosecutions, convictions, fines, jail sentences, or administrative actions such as FCC license revocations for violations of the radio privacy provisions of this new law ? In particular have there been any actual court interpretations of the its confusing and peculiar distinctions between different types of radio signals (and drastically different penalties for intercepting them) ? It was widely reported at the time the ECPA was passed that the justice department did not intend to prosecute anyone for violations of this law unless they were doing so for a clearly criminal purpose (EG such obviously criminal activities as intercepting microwave telephone calls from stores to credit authorization centers to steal credit card numbers would be prosecuted, but merely tuning around that spectrum to see what was there would not be). Does anybody know if this policy has changed ? Is it likely to change with a new administration in Washington ? If there have been any prosecutions at all, have any of them been of private individuals (hams/swls/rf hackers) for merely listening to radio or satellite communications in the privacy of their homes ? Were these all cases where there was some sort of criminal purpose or at least the intent to steal a service (such as pirating scrambled satellite TV) ? Or have there also been cases where hams/swls/rf hackers were prosecuted for interception of radio or satellite signals when such individuals were evidently motivated more or less entirely by a desire to listen to interesting 'action' or by curiosity about what is out there or by the technical challenge of receiving and demodulating and making sense of complex signals and seemingly had no criminal purpose whatever? I suspect that a surprisingly large percentage of readers of rec.ham-radio have technically violated the law in this later spirit (as the widespread interest in cutting D513 to enable cellular coverage in the PRO-2004 indicates); even though hams are notoriously law abiding I suspect many feel the law is unenforcable or are simply ignorant of its fierce provisions since it has been so very little publicized. If anybody out there knows of specific ECPA court cases it would very valuable if they could post that information to the net - as many questions remain about what this seemingly unenforcable law actually means in a practical sense to those of us who peer at the other regions of the rf spectrum as a part of our hobby. David I. Emery Charles River Data Systems 983 Concord St. Framingham, MA 01701 Tel: (617) 626-1102 uucp: ...!decvax!frog!die
markb@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Mark Biggar) (01/15/88)
Look, the FCC doesn't even have enough enforcement personal to enforce the
regulations from before ECPA much less do nay thing about it as well.
Case in point: There are a bunch of idiots in So. LA who have illegal
high wattage CB outfits, who have at times made ANY use of auto CB units
in the LA basin impossible. Even though the local CB clubs have complained
multiple times over the course of the last 5-7 years, the FCC has done
nothing about it. The reason being that the FCC has only 2 investigators
for the whole southern CA area (LA, Orange and Sna Deigo counties).
These overworked people have enough problems worring about interference
with commercial broadcasting to do any thing about citizen complaints.
Mark Biggar
{allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,akgua,sdcsvax}!sdcrdcf!markb
markb@rdcf.sm.unisys.comstevem@fai.UUCP (Steve Minneman) (01/19/88)
In article <1999@frog.UUCP> die@frog.UUCP (Dave Emery) writes: >cases) under the provisions of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of >1986 to listen to (intercept) certain radio communications. Does anyone >out there know if there have been any actual criminal investigations, arrests, >prosecutions, convictions, fines or jail sentences, or administrative actions >such as FCC license revocations for violations of the radio privacy provisions >of this new law ? In particular have there been any actual court >interpretations of the its confusing and peculiar distinctions between >different types of radio signals (and different penalties for intercepting >them) ? > > It was widely reported at the time the law was passed that the >justice department did not intend to prosecute anyone for violations of >the law unless they were doing so for a clearly criminal purpose (EG such >obviously criminal activities as intercepting microwave telephone calls from >stores to credit authorization centers to steal credit card numbers would >be prosecuted, but merely tuning around that spectrum to see what was there >would not be). Has this policy changed or is it likely to change >with a new administration in Washington ? > > If anybody out there knows of specific court cases it would very >valuable if they could post that information to the net - as many questions >remain about what this seemingly unenforcable law actually means in a >practical sense to those of us who peer at the rf spectrum as a part of >our hobby. It seems to me if I remember correctly, that this law was used to arrest some drug dealers in the L.A. area about six months ago. -- Steven A. Minneman (Fujitsu America Inc, San Jose, Ca) !seismo!amdahl!fai!stevem The best government is no government at all.
robert@uop.edu (Fred Flintstone) (01/20/88)
It was mentioned that drug dealers had been arrested for misuse of the law... I am not aware of that particular case, but I was under the impression that the communications act of 1934 covers such an offense, if it is say, using a scanner to intercept, and thereby locate police traffic pertaining to "your" crime. Locally we had some dealers arrested, but they were arrested for being dealers due to a ham that turned them in, seems the geek-dealer was sitting by the pool, making his deals over his CORDLESS PHONE. :-) Some people, they just don't know!
gnome@oliveb.olivetti.com (Gary) (01/20/88)
It was obvious from the start that the ECPA was designed to do two things. 1) Give cellular phone sales people a warm, cozy feeling and 2) Enable the FCC/federal government to use the law for selective enforcement. Not to mention that it now makes it easier to designate more areas "hear no evil" zones that you can be arrested for listenning to... Gary
die@frog.UUCP (Dave Emery) (01/23/88)
In article <675@fai.UUCP> stevem@fai.UUCP (Steve Minneman) writes: > >It seems to me if I remember correctly, that this law was used to arrest some >drug dealers in the L.A. area about six months ago. > For intercepting what radio transmissions ? (cellular phones, or police, DEA, or FBI microwave links, or other drug dealers pagers? ). If you have any details please post a further description of how this law that forbids listening to certain kinds of radio traffic now made private by legislative fiat was applied to prosecuting drug dealers. I understand the ECPA as specifically allowing normal scanner type monitoring of law enforcement and governmental nbfm VHF and UHF radio channels. This would seem to include most radio communications used by the anti-drug law enforcement types (DEA ect). It would be very interesting if the law has been applied to this (very popular and common) type of listening even if the listener had a serious criminal purpose in mind. It is also true that the ECPA has several sections that apply to computer system security (anti-hacker provisions) rather than to illegal interception of electronic communications traveling via radio. Perhaps the prosecution was on the basis of some crime other than passively listening to a radio signal ?
daveb@geac.UUCP (David Collier-Brown) (01/25/88)
In article <10089@ut-sally.UUCP> turpin@ut-sally.UUCP (Russell Turpin) writes: >In article <1999@frog.UUCP>, die@frog.UUCP (Dave Emery) writes: > It has now been a year that it has been illegal (a felony in many >> cases) under the provisions of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of >> 1986 to listen to (intercept) certain radio communications. > >This is a terrible law. If they do not want me to receive them, >they ought to keep their radio waves out of my back yard. If they If memory serves (and it may not, I was a minor when it was last discussed), "interception" was interpreted in Canada as just that: the capture of the message and its possible destruction. A lawyer will have to comment on the applicability of "eavesdropping as interception" in the US, and the legality of such under international agreements re the use of the electromagnetic spectrum. --dave (darn! I wish I was older) c-b -- David Collier-Brown. {mnetor yetti utgpu}!geac!daveb Geac Computers International Inc., | Computer Science loses its 350 Steelcase Road,Markham, Ontario, | memory (if not its mind) CANADA, L3R 1B3 (416) 475-0525 x3279 | every 6 months.
ron@topaz.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) (01/28/88)
The text of ECPA is quite clear that "unauthorized reception" is illegal. -Ron
leonard@qiclab.UUCP (Leonard Erickson) (01/28/88)
In article <2027@frog.UUCP> die@X.UUCP (David I. Emery) writes:
< I understand the ECPA as specifically allowing normal scanner type
<monitoring of law enforcement and governmental nbfm VHF and UHF radio
<channels. This would seem to include most radio communications used by
<the anti-drug law enforcement types (DEA ect). It would be very interesting
<if the law has been applied to this (very popular and common) type of
<listening even if the listener had a serious criminal purpose in mind.
It is *my* understanding from what I've seen in various sources, that ECPA
basicly prohibits listening to *any* transmission not specificly intended
for you or for the general public. Thus, the only stations you could legally
monitor are:
AM broadcasters
FM broadcasters
TV broadcasters
Shortwave broadcasters (BBC etc)
Amateur radio stations
CB stations
Note that ECPA *specificly* prohibits reception of scrambled signals,
and tramissions which were made with the expectation that they would be
private (whatever the hell *that* is supposed to mean!).
I could easily be wrong on *large* portions of the above. Could one of the
*real lawyers* out there check into this and give us a run-down? As a matter
of fact, I'd be willing to pay as much as $10 for a booklet that translated
ECPA into plain English, with a section by section commentary on what the
practical meaning was. I suspect others would too!
It would even help if the info on practical effects was only of the form:
"this means *at least* X is forbidden, Y is probably illegal too, and Z
might be"
--
Leonard Erickson ...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard
CIS: [70465,203] ...!tektronix!reed!qiclab!leonard
"I used to be a hacker. Now I'm a 'microcomputer specialist'.
You know... I'd rather be a hacker."