Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!noao!ncar!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: yazz@prodnet.la.locus.com (Bob Yazi) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Cordless Eavesdropping Message-ID: Date: 23 Feb 91 03:02:36 GMT Sender: news@casbah.acns.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 22 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 152, Message 1 of 7 Originator: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu [ A woman was overheard in a department store telling her son they wouldn't buy a cordless because the police could listen in. The poster (overhearer) expressed disapproval due to the word "police" rather than just "someone" and suggested that paranoia or her "kinds of phone calls" were the problem. ] Well, it's explicitly LEGAL for the police to listen in to your cordless calls. The Supreme Court has ruled on it. It remains to be ruled upon whether a person on a corded phone talking to someone else on a cordless has his conversation protected in any legal way. The IRS even announced that they were going to listen in on cordless calls. When the facts are vicious, I advocate the "spreading of vicious truths". If I were to wager on whether the woman was more "paranoid" (the poster's word) or the poster was more McCarthyistic (my word), I'm afraid I'd tend toward the latter. Bob Yazz -- yazz@lccsd.sd.locus.com