[Spooks] [Fwd: Potentially Damaging News to Radio Hobbyists]

[Dave Emery]

On Wed, Jul 17, 2002 at 07:04:06AM -0400, Chris Smolinski wrote:
> This may be of interest to US based spy numbers monitors. While it
> appears to be aimed at interceptions of cell phones and pagers (Billy
> Tauzin must have just received some large campaign contributions), it's
> possible that it could be twisted further into other types of
> "non-public" communications. 
> 

	What the change to the ECPA does is remove a "safe harbor" for
first time hobby type offenders who intercept ANY radio signals of ANY
kind that aren't "readily accessible to the general public" as defined
in section 2510. Prior to the change a hobby listener who got caught
tuning to an illegal signal was usually only liable for a $500 fine for
an "offense" or at most up to 1 year in prison for a misdemeanor if the
signal wasn't one of the very easy ones (cordless, analog cell, pagers,
etc).  Now a hobbyist  who gets caught intercepting something  defined
as off limits by 2510 ("not readily accessible to the general public")
will face the same exact full 5 year felony penalties as someone
intercepting phone calls for blackmail or illegal stock trading purposes,
or wiretapping your phone or bugging your bed room.   And it will no
longer be a defense that this was just a hobby and not for criminal
purposes or financial gain and nothing was disclosed to third parties.

	This may or may not strike you as appropriate for cell
intercepts, but as you know cordless phones operate on frequencies not
blocked on any scanners as do certain other readily received radio
signals such as broadcast remote pickup and STL links, so it is awfully
easy to commit a serious felony using common radio equipment.   And even
deliberately tuning a scanner to a pager signal of the type that carries
a few voice pages in addition to POCSAG or Flex would be the same exact
crime as bugging your bedroom and recording your most intimate moments
and in theory subject to the same penalties.

	As for the applicablity to HF radio, I suppose that numbers
broadcasts are governmental under the definations of 2510 and thus legal
to receive. But because utility HF is a tangled mishmash of various
users and signals, it is not altogether clear to me that strictly
speaking all HF signals are legal as some might be considered "common
carrier". or transmitted using essential modulation parameters withheld
from the public to protect privacy (apparently common for certain
European digital signals).

	


-- 
	Dave Emery N1PRE,  die@die.com  DIE Consulting, Weston, Mass. 
PGP fingerprint = 2047/4D7B08D1 DE 6E E1 CC 1F 1D 96 E2  5D 27 BD B0 24 88 C3 18