Xref: utzoo rec.ham-radio:3710 sci.electronics:1945 misc.legal:3508
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!unisoft!cerebus!fai!stevem
From: stevem@fai.UUCP (Steve Minneman)
Newsgroups: rec.ham-radio,sci.electronics,misc.legal
Subject: Re: Does the ECPA have teeth yet ?
Message-ID: <675@fai.UUCP>
Date: 18 Jan 88 20:05:46 GMT
References: <1999@frog.UUCP>
Reply-To: stevem@fai.UUCP (Steve Minneman)
Organization: Fujitsu America, Inc.
Lines: 35
Keywords: ECPA jail sentence felony ham swl  It has now been one year since it became illegal (a felony in many

In article <1999@frog.UUCP> die@frog.UUCP (Dave Emery) writes:
>cases) under the provisions of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of
>1986 to listen to (intercept) certain radio communications.   Does anyone
>out there know if there have been any actual criminal investigations, arrests,
>prosecutions, convictions, fines or jail sentences, or administrative actions 
>such as FCC license revocations for violations of the radio privacy provisions
>of this new law ?  In particular have there been any actual court 
>interpretations of the its confusing and peculiar distinctions between
>different types of radio signals  (and different penalties for intercepting
>them) ?
>
>	It was widely reported at the time the law was passed that the
>justice department did not intend to prosecute anyone for violations of
>the law unless they were doing so for a clearly criminal purpose (EG such
>obviously criminal activities as intercepting microwave telephone calls from
>stores to credit authorization centers to steal credit card numbers would
>be prosecuted, but merely tuning around that spectrum to see what was there
>would not be).  Has this policy changed or is it likely to change
>with a new administration in Washington ?
>
>	If anybody out there knows of specific court cases it would very
>valuable if they could post that information to the net - as many questions
>remain about what this seemingly unenforcable law actually means in a
>practical sense to those of us who peer at the rf spectrum as a part of
>our hobby.  

It seems to me if I remember correctly, that this law was used to arrest some
drug dealers in the L.A. area about six months ago.

-- 

		Steven A. Minneman (Fujitsu America Inc, San Jose, Ca)
		!seismo!amdahl!fai!stevem

The best government is no government at all.