mn@BBN.COM> (01/10/90)
In article <6099@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> doug@loihi.soest.hig.hawaii (Doug Myhre) writes: >The US Supreme Court has just ruled that people do NOT have the normal >constitutional right to privacy (that the get with the regular phone >system) when they use a cordless telephone. When you talk over a cordless >telephone, anyone can monitor it without reprecussions - private individuals >police (w/o a search warrent), gov't, etc... I know cordless phone are probably defined by the court to mean those phones with an antenna that work with a base unit. Cordless, wireless... But aren't cellular phones cordless as well? No wires, transmits over the radiowaves. Same thing except for the mega bucks the cellular industry has to buy politicians and their votes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | Michael Nowicki N6LUU Atari Corp,Sunnyvale CA /TT/UNIX/X team | |............................................................................| | char *disclaimer=" Views expressed are my own, not my employer's"; | | char *good_quote=" 'Wait'll they get a load of me!' - The Joker"; | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
chuq@BBN.COM> (01/11/90)
mn@atari.UUCP (Mike Nowicki) writes: > I know cordless phone are probably defined by the court to mean those >phones with an antenna that work with a base unit. Cordless, wireless... > But aren't cellular phones cordless as well? Yes and no. 'Cordless phones' and 'Cellular phones' are two services of phones that are really defined by the frequencies they use. 'Cellular' phones are cordless, but don't use the frequencies allocated to cordless systems. -- Chuq Von Rospach <+> chuq@apple.com <+> [This is myself speaking] The contest is over. Six people got the correct answer. The interesting thing was the reaction to a list of names. You'd almost think that I'd said something negative about them -- which I didn't. The reasons for the list were left to the imagination -- on purpose. The reactions were amusing.
levin@BBN.COM> (01/11/90)
In article <37761@apple.Apple.COM> chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: |mn@atari.UUCP (Mike Nowicki) writes: |> I know cordless phone are probably defined by the court to mean those |>phones with an antenna that work with a base unit. Cordless, wireless... |> But aren't cellular phones cordless as well? |Yes and no. 'Cordless phones' and 'Cellular phones' are two services of |phones that are really defined by the frequencies they use. 'Cellular' |phones are cordless, but don't use the frequencies allocated to cordless |systems. They're defined by a lot more than that. The normal cordless phone is an extension (via a public medium) of your personal private interface to the phone system. A cellular or old-style mobile telephone is your access by radio, the same public medium, to a public base station shared by other subscribers. And your cellular phone has a lot of smarts and fancier two way control protocols. The important thing about cordless (and cellular) is that they are essentially two way radios using a public resource designated by law as a public resource or whatever the phrase is. They are not extension phones with extra convenience. The user of this device should be made aware of this fact so he or she can exercise responsibility for the security his or her communications require. I got frosted enough listening to an All Things Considered interview with Alan Dershowitz (with whom I frequently agree) that I wrote them a letter about it. Of course, the court case dealt specifically with the question of the acceptability of evidence derived from cordless phone transmission, but the "expectation of privacy" a user of a telephone may have does not in my opinion apply to the user of a two way radio. /JBL Nets: levin@bbn.com | "There were sweetheart roses on Yancey Wilmerding's or {...}!bbn!levin | bureau that morning. Wide-eyed and distraught, she POTS: (617)873-3463 | stood with all her faculties rooted to the floor."
roskos@BBN.CO> (01/13/90)
Does anyone have the rationale behind this ruling available?
It is interesting how people (particularly lawmakers) think about these
topics. One thing that comes to mind is that cordless telephones provide
their own means of monitoring (i.e., two cordless phones that work on
the same frequency could be used to listen to each other without
modification, I think) whereas cellular telephones inherently have built
in mechanisms to prevent that. I wonder if this might be involved in
the rationale?
--
Eric Roskos (roskos@CS.IDA.ORG or Roskos@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL)
"What is the point of this story? What information pertains?
The thought that life could be better