Hacker Chronicles 1/HACKER1.ISO/radio1/elecpriv.txt

Text File | 1992-10-03 | 5KB | 101 lines

HR 3378 APPROVED BY HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE

The repeatedly-delayed markup of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act took
place on May 14.  After turning down two amendments which would have reduced the
bill's impact on radio listeners, the Subcommittee voted to report the bill to
the full Judiciary Committee for further action.

The final version of the bill includes several controversial provisions:

* Under the bill's new definition of "interception of electronic
communications," the mere detection of certain frequencies of RF energy would be
a crime, even if no attempt is made to demodulate the signal or obtain the
content of the transmission.

* Under the bill's interference provisions, a person receiving a signal that is
being interfered with may continue to listen only as long as is necessary to
identify the interfering station. After the station is identified the receiver
must be switched off or tuned to another station.  According to Robert Horvitz
of ANARC, "A person reporting receiving interference after identifying its
source may be admitting to a criminal act."
* A penalty of up to a year in jail and up to a $10,000 fine would be imposed
for monitoring certain shortwave transmissions, including 26 MHz Remote
broadcast Pickup (RPU) stations, encrypted RTTY stations and, it appears,
ship-to-shore radiotelephones (more clarification on this last point is hoped
for).

The same penalties would apply to scanner owners monitoring RPU stations in the
153, 161, 450 and 455 MHz bands; radio common carriers (RCCs) around 152, 158
and 454 MHz; voice, numeric and alphanumeric paging transmissions; and any FM
subcarrier service.

* Willful interception of a cellular mobile telephone transmission would carry a
penalty of up to 6 months imprisonment and a fine of up to $500.  This penalty
is considerably less than what cellular industry representatiles requested.
Monitoring of the older-style manual and IMTS car telephones in the 150 and 450
MHz bands would carry the stiffer 1 year and/or $10,000 penalty.

* Radio services not protected by the bill include most private land mobile
radio services such as aeronautical, governmental, law enforcement, civil
defense and publRc safety, unless their signals are scrambled, that is,
"transmitted using modulation techniques whose essential parameters have been
withheld from the public."

There was no clarification as to whether monitoring of private land mobile
stations that use phone patches would be permitted.

* The 460 MHz General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) is now exempt from the bill,
as is CB. The provisions relating to Amateur Radio have not changed from the
previous versions; monitoring of amateur signals is permitted, but monitoring of
any communications transmitted through a "common carrier" such as the telephone
company is not permitted.

Whether this language permits or prohibits listening to autopatch calls was not
clarified in the bill in spite of requests by the ARRL and many hams.

* Cordless telephones and tone pagers are specifically exempted from the bill.
No explanation was offered for these exemptions, but a possible reason is that
drug enforcement authorities monitor these communications and wanted to continue
to be able to do so without special approvals.

Rep.  Michael DeWine (R-Ohio) offered amendments that would have protected
encrypted communications but would treat cellular as just another land mobile
service, i.e., interception would be permitted so long as the content was not
divulged or used.

DeWine said, "A lot of people in my Congressional district, and I'm sure in a
lot of Congressional districts, have scanners....[If a scanner picks up a
cellular call] this bill means that that constituent could be imprisoned for six
months, even if he didn't disclose the information....To me it's bad public
policy to create a law that everyone knows will not be enforced.  Yet the
Justice Department has told us, and will tell you right now, if you ask them,
they have absolutely no intention of enforcing that part of the bill.

"If they did tell us they were going to actively enforce this part of the bill,
I think we would all question their sanity...But yet we're allowing the cellular
phone industry to use this bill to tell people they have an expectation of
privacy when in fact they do not."

In response, Kastenmeier countered that the cost of encryption "is enormous.
We're told it would cost perhaps $2,500 a unit, $164,000 for [a base
station]...[Encryption] is resorted to in certain cases, for example, satellite
communications for major commercial programs.  However, that is a very expensive
way to go and we cannot impose that and make America entirely an encrypted
society..."

Rep.  Patrick Swindall from Georgia offered that "it is infinitely worse public
policy to establish a situation where you are encouraging individuals to
eavesdrop on electronic communications." Rep.  Barney Frank noted that "if
someone inadvertantly picks up on a scanner, or doesn't turn it off quick
enough, prosecutorial discretion exists." The DeWine amendments were defeated.

In recognizing the opposition to the bill, Rep.  Jack Brooks commended the
Subcommittee, saying, "Everybody cries before you hit 'em, and you've done an
outstanding job of listening to 'em, and holding their hands, and lettin' 'em
bleed and cry."

-de KC5CW

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