[Spooks] censorship

[Chris Smolinski]

On Wed, 8 Oct 2003, Ben Mesander wrote:

> PS: Also, the UK has never had free speech in the American sense. But listening
> to the 800MHz band in the US has apparently become a felony thanks to the
> Patriot act.

Prior to the ECPA (circa 1987 if my memory is correct) there were no
prohibitions on listening to any radio communications whatsoever in the
US, the only restriction (1933 Communications Act) was that you could not
divulge what you heard. The ECPA was bought, err, promoted by the
telecommunications industry, as a way to make folk's cell phone calls
private, prohibiting listening to them (as well as pagers, and perhaps
some other comms) and forcing the FCC to not type accept any reciever that
tunes those bands in. (All radios sold in the US must be FCC type
accepted, the original purpose was to prevent sale of radios that leaked
excessive RF and could cause interference)

I've not seen any specific text from the Patriot Act as what further radio
reception bans it adds. Although I imagine most members of congress
couldn't tell you what specific items are in the act as well.

Ute listening has always been a gray area in the UK and most of the rest
of the world, officially illegal, but tolerated as long as you don't spill
the beans on any state secrets (like Prince Charles' shoe size I guess).
Less tolerated in much of the rest of the world.

As the ute monitoring community never had a strong lobbying group (and the
ARRL wouldn't spend any political capital defending us anyway) there was
no one to prevent passage of these types of laws. I'd also venture to say
that we did it to ourselves. There were too many TV news stories showing
radio enthusiasts listening to cell phone calls on their scanner, and the
lawmakers [over]reacted.

I do not wish to start a debate or flame war over the merits of such
legislation. If anyone has any facts regarding what restrictions are
actually in place (ECPA or Patriot Act in the US, or other laws in their
respective countries) I do think that would be an on topic post, as to how
they relate to the legality of monitoring spy numbers and similar
transmissions.

As far as E2K and E3 are concerned, I think they are trying to avoid any
overt actions on their part that could bring down the wrath of their
government. I don't believe E2K has a legal defense fund.

73
Chris